Associate Director, Global Marketing - Obesity

Merck•North Wales, PA

4d•$142,400 - $224,100•Hybrid

About The Position

The Associate Director, Global Marketing – Obesity will help advance global commercial strategy for obesity assets in development. The role operates at the intersection of strategy, asset development, and customer insight, focusing on how assets can be positioned, differentiated, and valued for healthcare professional (HCP) and healthcare customer (HCC) audiences. The position supports development decisions, future launch readiness, and value creation for patients, healthcare professionals, healthcare customers, and the enterprise in a dynamic and competitive market. The role applies the L3 brand strategy framework and collaborates across Clinical Development, Medical Affairs, Market Access, Outcomes Research, Policy, Competitive Intelligence, Forecasting, regional teams, and other partners. It requires synthesizing science, customer needs, competitive intelligence, and cross-functional perspectives into strategic choices and commercial foundations for identified opportunities. The position is based in Rahway, New Jersey, with a hybrid work arrangement and 10% travel. The role is regular employee status, with no relocation offered and no visa sponsorship.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree.
At least 7 years of progressive or combined experience in marketing, market access, strategy, or related pharmaceutical or biotechnology roles, with demonstrated contribution to asset, brand, or portfolio strategy.
Experience in obesity, cardiometabolic, diabetes, cardiovascular, renal, or other highly competitive specialty markets.
Experience developing HCP and/or HCC strategies, value propositions, positioning, messaging, or customer-insight-driven strategic deliverables.
Strong understanding of early asset development, commercial input into development decisions, and marketing's role in shaping target product profile, evidence, positioning, and future launch strategy.
Ability to synthesize complex market, customer, clinical, competitive, and access inputs into clear strategic implications and executive-ready recommendations.
Skills in adaptability, biopharmaceutical industry, biotechnology, brand strategy, communication strategy development, creativity, cross-functional collaboration, cross-team collaboration, customer focus, customer insights, global marketing, market access, market research, product management, strategic market analysis, and strategic thinking.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree, preferably an MBA.
Experience applying the L3 brand/marketing strategy or launch excellence frameworks to asset or brand strategy development.
Ability to anticipate how customer expectations, competitor activity, clinical evidence, access dynamics, and policy changes may shape future opportunities.
Competitive intelligence experience monitoring, interpreting, and communicating insights to inform strategic choices and franchise priorities.
Proven strategic planning ability, including analyzing complex data and situations, making clear strategic choices, and developing long-term customer-centric strategies.
Entrepreneurial ability to create high-value deliverables from white space, operate amid ambiguity, and proactively identify opportunities to differentiate and win.
Strong cross-functional leadership and collaboration, including the ability to lead without authority across commercial, clinical, medical, access, research, policy, competitive intelligence, forecasting, regional, and agency partners.
Ability to communicate complex insights simply and credibly, tailor messages for senior leaders and cross-functional audiences, and drive alignment.
Ability to manage multiple priorities, clarify decisions, align stakeholders, and deliver high-quality strategic outputs on time.
Curiosity, external orientation, learning agility, and willingness to challenge the status quo to identify new ways to create value.

Responsibilities

Lead and support development of global commercial strategy for obesity assets in development, ensuring strategies are insight-driven, future-focused, and aligned with enterprise priorities.
Develop differentiated HCP and HCC value propositions for each asset, including customer-specific benefits, reasons to believe, and future positioning implications.
Apply the L3 brand strategy framework to develop and refine commercial foundations, including market in focus, asset differentiators, initial brand positioning, value propositions, early asset strategy, and transition-to-launch implications.
Partner with Clinical Development, Market Access, Outcomes Research, Manufacturing, and other colleagues to identify commercial implications of target product profiles, endpoints, patient populations, evidence needs, and development choices.
Monitor, synthesize, and communicate competitive insights, including emerging mechanisms, competitor development plans, market trends, customer expectations, and future scenarios.
Translate competitive and market insights into strategic implications for asset prioritization, differentiation, development planning, and future launch readiness.
Collaborate across functions to evaluate and develop identified strategic opportunities, including opportunity spaces, priority customer segments, unmet needs, access considerations, and potential innovation areas.
Support strategic deliverables, governance materials, leadership updates, and cross-functional decision documents that communicate commercial perspectives, assumptions, risks, opportunities, and recommended actions.
Partner with regional and key-market colleagues to incorporate market realities and customer needs while maintaining strategic consistency across the portfolio.
Contribute as a key member of the Global Commercial Team, leading without authority and fostering collaboration, strategic rigor, accountability, inclusion, and One Team ways of working.