Director, Commercial - AI Acceleration and Innovation

Kite Pharma • Foster City, CA

3d • $205,615 - $292,710

About The Position

We’re here for one reason and one reason only – to cure cancer. Every moment is dedicated to developing treatments and every action moves us one step closer to our goal. We’ve made incredible scientific breakthroughs and our pioneering personalized CAR T-cell therapies have changed the paradigm. But we're not finished yet. Join Kite, as we make even bigger advances in cancer therapies, and help shape where our business and medical science goes next. We believe every employee deserves a great leader. People Leaders are the cornerstone to the employee experience at Gilead and Kite. As a people leader now or in the future, you are the key driver in evolving our culture and creating an environment where every employee feels included, developed and empowered to fulfil their aspirations. Join Kite and help create more tomorrows. Job Description The Director, Commercial AI Acceleration and Innovation will support Kite’s commercial strategy and governance for AI initiatives, ensuring that innovation is purposeful, ethical, and value-driven. This leader will be responsible for AI opportunity identification and framing, establishing and operationalizing the governance framework that prioritizes and oversees AI use cases across Commercial functions, leads organizational AI fluency in partnership with enterprise teams and support the roll up of the same to enterprise prioritization and governance. This role closely with partner with Commercial/Medical Functions, GDDI functional teams and Gilead IT, to run communities of practice, intake and prioritize AI initiatives, drive proof of concept execution in partnership with technical teams, measure business impact, and enable transparent reporting through different governance forums.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree and Twelve Years’ Experience OR Masters' Degree and Ten Years’ Experience OR PhD and Eight Years’ Experience
• People Leader Accountabilities Create Inclusion - knowing the business value of diverse teams, modeling inclusion, and embedding the value of diversity in the way they manage their teams.
• Develop Talent - understand the skills, experience, aspirations, and potential of their employees and coach them on current performance and future potential. They ensure employees are receiving the feedback and insight needed to grow, develop, and realize their purpose.
• Empower Teams - connect the team to the organization by aligning goals, purpose, and organizational objectives and holding them to account. They provide the support needed to remove barriers and connect their team to the broader ecosystem.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s or PhD in Data Science, Computer Science, Business Analytics, or Business fields.
• Proven experience in AI, data science including 3+ years in strategy, governance and/or enterprise program leadership.
• Demonstrated experience in identifying, prioritizing, and delivering complex projects within large, matrixed organizations.
• Proven ability to partner across business, IT, or data teams to operationalize AI solutions.
• Strong executive presence, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience in biopharma or healthcare, with exposure to commercial functions
• Proven track record of establishing or leading cross-functional teams
• Deep understanding of AI governance, privacy, and compliance frameworks in regulated industries (life sciences preferred).
• Leadership Competencies Strategic Influence: Aligns cross-functional teams toward shared AI priorities and drives executive consensus.
• Innovation Mindset: Anticipates emerging trends and translates them into meaningful business solutions.
• Operational Excellence: Builds structured processes for governance, prioritization, and value realization.
• Enterprise Thinking: Sees connections across the organization, integrating data, people, and capabilities to scale impact.
• Ethical Stewardship: Champions

Responsibilities

• Opportunity Identification and Framing: Collaborate with functions and functional use case champions to frame AI opportunities, outlining business objectives, feasibility, expected value, data needs, and success metrics.
• Governance Leadership: Establish and lead AI governance structures within Commercial functions, ensuring alignment with Gilead and Kite priorities, data policies, regulatory standards, and ethical principles.
• Prioritization and Portfolio Oversight: Evaluate and prioritize AI initiatives based on strategic fit, business readiness, and value potential; maintain a living portfolio of AI use cases with defined milestones and KPIs – with inputs from the council.
• Proof of Concept (PoC) Management: Partner with Gilead IT and functional teams to design, execute, and monitor projects. Document learnings and outcomes to inform go/no-go governance decisions and scaling roadmaps.
• Value Measurement and Reporting: Develop and track KPIs to assess business impact of AI initiatives; report insights and progress to executive sponsors and governance boards.
• Leadership Alignment: Support Leadership alignment on Key AI initiatives for the commercial functions including value story and resource alignment
• Enterprise Governance Support: Deliver regular updates and recommendations to the Kite AI Governance Board and Gilead/Kite Leadership, highlighting value delivered, risks mitigated, and opportunities for acceleration.
• AI Literacy and GenAI Enablement: Lead AI literacy programs and promote employee productivity through responsible adoption of Generative AI tools across the enterprise.
• Innovation and Community Building: Drive a culture of continuous innovation through hackathons, knowledge-sharing sessions, ideation forums, and coordination of an active AI Community of Practice within Kite.

Benefits

• This position may also be eligible for a discretionary annual bonus, discretionary stock-based long-term incentives (eligibility may vary based on role), paid time off, and a benefits package.
• Benefits include company-sponsored medical, dental, vision, and life insurance plans.
• For additional benefits information, visit: https://www.gilead.com/careers/compensation-benefits-and-wellbeing
• Eligible employees may participate in benefit plans, subject to the terms and conditions of the applicable plans.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director