Clinical Digital & AI Acceleration Innovation Manager

Sanofi•Cambridge, MA

3d•Onsite

About The Position

Join the engine of Sanofi’s mission — where deep immunoscience meets bold, AI-powered research. In R&D, you’ll drive breakthroughs that could turn the impossible into possible for millions. Sanofi is a leading bio-pharmaceutical company committed to advancing healthcare through groundbreaking research and development. Our dedicated function – Clinical Sciences & Operations (CSO) - plays a vital role in ensuring accurate and compliant clinical trial submissions and project operations, contributing to the approval of innovative therapies that transform patients' lives. Within CSO, the Modernization & Performance Office (MPO) acts as a key enabler of transformation and modernization, driving strategic initiatives that enhance efficiency, digital innovation, and operational excellence across the function. As we continue our business transformation and drive excellence and innovation in our processes, we are seeking an exceptional professional to join us as Digital Acceleration & Innovation Lead. The Clinical Digital & AI Acceleration innovation Manager is a CSO-wide, function-level leadership role reporting to the Head of Clinical Digital & AI Acceleration, with explicit accountability for shaping, steering, and realizing the value of CSO’s digital and AI transformation agenda across Sanofi’s Clinical Sciences & Operations (CSO). The role operates as a strategic authority rather than a delivery contributor, responsible for orchestrating global-scale digital and AI transformation across clinical development, with decision rights on portfolio prioritization, investment trade-offs, resource allocation, and execution strategies within the transformation portfolio. The incumbent directly influences CSO operating model evolution, ensuring that digital and AI initiatives fundamentally reshape how clinical trials are designed, executed, and governed globally, with measurable business, quality, and patient impact. The position combines strong digital and AI domains with function-level business and transformation leadership, requiring the ability to produce decision-grade insights for CSO leadership, translate complex technology and regulatory constraints into strategic value hypotheses, and steer outcomes across highly matrixed, regulated environments. The role also leverages competitive and technology intelligence to proactively shape CSO strategic choices. If you are a visionary leader with a passion for transforming clinical operations processes and driving innovation in clinical research, we encourage you to apply for this exciting opportunity. Join our team and contribute to our mission of improving patient outcomes through cutting-edge therapies.

Requirements

Minimum 8 years of experience in enterprise digital transformation, portfolio leadership, or strategic program governance
Proven track record leading large-scale digital, data, or AI-enabled transformation in complex, regulated environments
Strong experience in BVA modeling, ROI tracking, and benefit realization
Proven ability to influence executive decisions and steer outcomes without direct hierarchical authority
Understanding of clinical development, with enterprise exposure to GCP, ICH-GCP, and operational quality frameworks

Nice To Haves

MBA will be a plus.

Responsibilities

Co-own and lead CSO Digital & AI transformation initiatives at function level, ensuring alignment with CSO strategy, business priorities, and value realization commitments.
Exercise decision authority on initiatives prioritization, sequencing, and trade-offs to maximize CSO-wide value and time-to-impact.
Align strategically and operationally CSO’s flagship transformation initiatives (e.g., ACT4Patients & eDEV) to ensure coherence, integration, and early realization of business outcomes
Continuously challenge and recalibrate the transformation roadmap based on business performance data, field feedback, and competitive intelligence
Ensure global visibility and governance alignment across all internal and external digital innovation initiatives (Clinical Innovation, external forums, partnerships, etc.)
Evolve the Initiative Portfolio Management Office (iPMO) as a CSO governance and decision-enablement mechanism, not a procedural framework
Define, institutionalize, and enforce governance standards (business cases, ROI logic, value tracking, scale-up criteria, stop/pivot decisions)
Hold transformation teams accountable for outcome-based delivery and value realization, beyond milestone completion
Lead and sponsor selected high-impact, multi-million-euro, clinical-development critical transformation programs with Digital and/or AI components
Accountable for end-to-end outcomes, including strategic alignment, financial performance, adoption, scale-up, and sustained value delivery
Direct and validate: Competitive and technology intelligence to inform strategic positioning, function-level business needs and value hypotheses, prioritization of business-driven requirements shaping product and roadmap decisions & gaps analysis against existing solutions and operating models
Provide strategic direction on vendor models, sourcing strategies, and contractual frameworks in alignment with CSO transformation priorities
Oversee financial planning, investment phasing, and resource allocation to optimize enterprise ROI
Influence CSO-wide positioning and integration of strategic platforms (e.g., NEXUS, TrialPulse, Concierge)
Ensure successful enterprise deployment and scale-up, tracking realized benefits beyond pilot or proof-of-concept stages
Own risk, dependency, and performance steering, escalating and arbitrating at CSO leadership level as required
Define and own CSO-wide frameworks for measuring ROI, business impact, adoption, and maturity of digital, data, and AI initiatives
Provide portfolio-level, decision-grade visibility on solution interdependencies, capability impacts, and end-to-end process transformation
Institutionalize lessons learned and drive continuous improvement across the CSO transformation ecosystem
Continuously scan and interpret external technology, AI, and regulatory trends, translating them into actionable CSO transformation opportunities
Engage, influence, and challenge CSO senior leadership and executive stakeholders as a trusted transformation and governance partner
Represent portfolio status, risks, and value realization in executive governance forums, providing clear recommendations and decision options
Co-lead CSO-level digital and AI strategy forums, shaping leadership understanding and adoption of innovation
Build and maintain enterprise partnerships beyond CSO (TMU, GRA, PV, Digital, etc.) to accelerate transformation at scale
Act as an enterprise integrator between business, technology, and data teams, ensuring alignment and accountability