Associate Director Controlling R&D

Merck•Billerica, MA

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

As Associate Director of Healthcare R&D Controlling Functions, you will serve as a senior business partner for two Healthcare R&D Functions. Your responsibilities include managing functional spending of approximately 90 million Euros, supporting around 400 employees. This involves partnering with and supporting the business in achieving key strategic objectives such as efficient organizational setup, pipeline delivery, and operational improvements. You will drive key finance-related processes like Operating Plan & Forecasting for all indirect costs within your responsibility and enhance personnel cost transparency in collaboration with Human Resources and the Business to improve forecasting accuracy. Additionally, you will drive decisions and support the implementation of organizational and local US initiatives. You report to the Head of Healthcare R&D Function Controlling.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Economics and/or Finance
Minimum 8 years’ experience in Controlling in pharmaceutical industry in a business partner role (ideally within Research & Development)
Business-fluent English skills

Nice To Haves

Finance Business Partner experience in global setup with proven senior stakeholder management experience
Analytical approach combined with strong service attitude
Excellent communication and presentation skills to all levels of the organization and ability to interact with senior management in matrix organization
Strong work ethic, structured approach, good interpersonal skills, and a collaborative spirit
Resilient with ability to work under pressure, keeping deadlines and delivering high quality
Sophisticated proficiency with SAP reporting systems (SAC Mcloud, TM1 & MS-Office)
Openness to leveraging Generative AI tools to drive efficiency and business impact.

Responsibilities

Be an active part of the respective functional R&D Leadership Teams, understand functional business needs, have an influencer voice within R&D Controlling team and towards the functional Leadership Team
Manage and control the Healthcare R&D IT budget in close collaboration with R&D IT Committee
Identify and drive functional efficiencies, aligned with longer term functional strategy, together with Business and Human Resources
Strive to improve existing processes and drive efficiency initiatives with your business
Represent Controlling within local US investment initiatives and strategic local functional R&D projects (e.g. Business cases creation, CAPEX project valuations…)
Provide regular valuable management business performance insights for your functions
Lead and handle all Controlling processes (Forecast, Financial Steering, Year-end close) for the respective Functions / Indirect Budget (Cost center => Personnel cost controlling)
Act as a financial business partner for two L2 function(s), provide financial advice and analysis to optimize strategic/ operational decisions both short and long-term