Associate Director, Incentive Compensation

Ferring Pharmaceuticals•Parsippany, NJ

23h•$151,000 - $280,000•Hybrid

About The Position

As a privately-owned, biopharmaceutical company, Ferring pioneers and delivers life-changing therapies that help people build families and live better lives. Our independence helps us cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit and long-term perspective that enables us to achieve growth and scale, while remaining agile and true to our ‘people first’ philosophy. Built on a 70-year plus commitment to science and research, Ferring is relentless in its pursuit of science that drives powerful discoveries and therapies to help people build families, stay healthy, and stand up to the world’s oldest enemy: disease. The Associate Director, Incentive Compensation (IC) owns the end-to-end US incentive compensation program for Ferring's field-based sales, account management and market access teams. The role leads plan design, goal setting, payout administration, annual awards contests, and the governance framework. This is a high-visibility, largely independent role that directs external vendor and consultant resources to deliver. The Associate Director partners closely with Sales Leadership, Finance, HR, Legal and Compliance. Plans must be fiscally responsible, motivational, equitable and simple enough for every field employee to understand. With Ferring, you will be joining a recognized leader, identified as one of “The World’s Most Innovative Companies” by Fast Company, and honored by Fortune with inclusion on its “Change the World List,” for addressing society’s unmet needs. Ferring US is also Great Places to Work® Certified, distinguishing it as one of the best companies to work for in the country.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Analytics or a related field.
5+ years of direct incentive compensation experience, preferably in pharmaceutical, biotech or life sciences.
3+ years of sales analytics, sales operations or consulting experience.
Strong knowledge of sales incentive theory and its practical application, including goal-based, commission and MBO plan types.
Experience designing IC plans across the product lifecycle, from launch to mature brands.
Working knowledge of healthcare compliance considerations as they apply to field incentives.
Advanced Excel and PowerPoint skills; comfort working with large sales and alignment datasets.
Sound judgment: weighs the tradeoffs and makes clear recommendations, not just options.
Ability to influence senior executives and drive alignment in a matrixed environment without direct authority.
Clear, concise written and verbal communication for audiences from field representatives to the CFO.
Strong project management skills and the ability to handle multiple quarterly deadlines at once.
High attention to detail, discretion with confidential compensation data, and a strong sense of ownership.

Nice To Haves

MBA or other advanced degree.
Experience with IC administration platforms and pharmaceutical data sources (for example IQVIA, specialty pharmacy and 867 data).
Experience managing IC vendors and offshore or consulting delivery teams.
Interest in applying AI and automation to scale analysis and operations.

Responsibilities

Oversee quarterly IC calculation, validation and reporting in partnership with the IC vendor, ensuring accuracy, timeliness and auditability.
Manage pre- and post-payout adjustments, appeals, data restatements and impact analyses under the approved adjustment policies.
Prepare and manage payroll submissions through the required approval chain
Manage the quarterly IC budget and forecast, and keep Finance informed of changes that affect accruals and budget utilization.
Interface with IT, data and analytics teams to ensure appropriate data procurement, integration, alignment and governance.
Lead IC plan design across all business units and roles for brands at every lifecycle stage from launch to mature.
Assess current plan effectiveness each quarter and year, identify required changes, and build proposals with simulated budget utilization, fairness and equity analyses, and compliance considerations.
Design and maintain MBO-based plans for account-facing roles
Own goal-setting strategy and methodology including goal models, refreshes and national-to-territory allocation.
Partner with HR on pay mix and target incentive benchmarking so IC targets remain market-competitive and internally consistent across career levels.
Own and maintain the IC Governance and IC Processes SOP, IC policies, and the decision log, including the approval matrix (RACI) for plan design, contests, eligibility rules, adjustments and payouts.
Intake and evaluate IC change and exception requests from across the organization, assess them against policy, and route them to the correct approval tier.
Establish and enforce IC rules and timelines, including eligibility, leave of absence, new hire, guarantee, termination and territory-change treatment.
Ensure IC plans and programs comply with company policy, healthcare compliance requirements and applicable laws; flag decisions that require governance or compliance review.
Design, track and administer annual award programs
Design and govern sales contests against established guardrails
Provide regular performance and ranking reporting so the field and leadership can see progress throughout the year.
Keep program top of mind amongst field employees.
Measure plan effectiveness, payout distribution, budget utilization and goal attainment; provide regular updates to each business unit and to the Governance Committee.
Use industry benchmarks and survey data to inform plan design and pay practice recommendations.
Identify opportunities to streamline and automate IC operations, including evaluating and implementing IC platforms, field reporting tools and AI-enabled workflows.
Conduct ad hoc analysis, contest simulations, etc.
Serve as the IC subject-matter expert and trusted advisor
Build and execute the field communication plan: plan documents, rollout materials, training and FAQs that make each plan easy to understand.
Respond to field and leadership questions on individual performance and payouts, and support HR and Legal on IC-related employee relations, audit and litigation requests.
Manage the external IC vendor relationship, including statements of work, deliverables, service levels and quarterly transition processes.
Direct and develop consultants and analysts supporting IC operations, analytics and governance documentation.

Benefits

competitive total compensation
exceptional range of flexible benefits
personal support
tailored learning and development opportunities
working hours that respect your lifestyle
culture that is welcoming and equitable
comprehensive healthcare (medical, dental, and vision) with a premium differential, inverse to base salary, to be paid by employees
a 401k plan and company match
short and long-term disability coverage
basic life insurance
wellness benefits
reimbursement for certain tuition expenses
sick time frontloaded yearly of 40 hours, or higher if state or local law requires
vacation time for full time employees to accrue between 112.5 and 150 hours yearly in the first four (4) years of employment, and additional accruals starting in the fifth (5th) year of employment
12 to 13 paid holidays per year
20 weeks of paid parental leave