Director, Commercial Operations & Strategy

Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical•Novato, CA

2d•$235,700 - $291,200•Hybrid

About The Position

Reporting to the VP, Global Commercial Operations & Strategy, the Director leads operationalization of Ultragenyx's global commercial governance model, with primary focus on global pricing governance and commercial planning. The scope is global, spanning North America, Latin America, EMEA, and APAC, covering in-line commercial products and pre-launch assets. This role is accountable for enabling decision-making across pricing, forecasting, commercial analytics, portfolio prioritization, and distributor governance. It operates across Commercial, Finance, Supply Chain, Market Access, and Regional organizations to drive enterprise alignment. The role interfaces regularly with senior leadership through governance forums and executive materials, working in close partnership with function and Region teams. The role sits within a small, collaborative team that values clarity, pragmatism, and constructive problem-solving. The successful candidate will bring a solid grounding in pricing or market access and the appetite to broaden across commercial, the operational rigor to institutionalize governance forums, and the strategic judgment to facilitate thoughtful, high-impact decisions—and will be someone others genuinely want to work with on complex problems.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Life Sciences, or related discipline.
10+ years of experience within the biopharmaceutical industry.
Direct experience in Market Access and/or Pricing (including Pricing Operations), with demonstrated exposure to pricing governance or global pricing decision-making.
Demonstrated ability to lead complex initiatives without direct authority in global, matrixed organizations.
Strong analytical and financial acumen, including comfort with Power BI, Excel-based analytics, and executive reporting tools.
Solution-oriented approach to ambiguous problems - with a demonstrated ability to move from problem identification to actionable path forward while maintaining constructive relationships
Strong executive communication and presentation skills; ability to translate analysis into recommendations for senior leadership.
Direct experience operating within global pricing governance frameworks (corridors, thresholds, exception management)
Experience partnering with or working within Global Market Access, HEOR, or Pricing & Reimbursement functions, including launch pricing decisions for rare disease, specialty pharmaceutical, biotechnology, or gene therapy products
Experience with commercial forecasting, business planning, performance management, product launch planning, and distributor-based commercial models
Prior experience in management or strategy consulting with a life sciences focus (particularly in pricing, market access, or commercial excellence), combined with substantive biotech experience.

Responsibilities

Own the operational leadership of the Pricing Operations Group - agenda-setting, decision framing, team coordination, materials, and executive escalation - in support of pricing decisions owned by Market Access and Commercial partners.
Build and steward the global pricing tracker and reporting infrastructure, leading collection, validation, and reporting of pricing information with Regional and Market Access teams under disciplined controls on data sensitivity and access.
Steward pricing corridor frameworks, approval thresholds, and exception management processes, and drive continuous improvement of pricing governance as the portfolio and geographic footprint evolve.
Lead the operational cadence of the forecast consensus process and own the forecast assumptions log and change-control process, ensuring a single, traceable, and reconciled view of demand.
Partner with Commercial, Finance, and Supply teams to improve forecast transparency, reconciliation quality, and organizational alignment.
Lead ongoing operation of the Global Commercial KPI governance framework, in partnership with Finance, including metric definitions, ownership, calculation logic, data sources, cadence, and reconciliation rules.
Partner with functions and Region teams to develop executive dashboards and performance narratives that connect data to business implications and recommended actions.
Support enterprise investment and prioritization decisions through structured analyses, business cases, and executive decision materials, and assess the commercial implications of strategic alternatives and resource-allocation trade-offs.
Partner with Regional teams and the VP, Global Commercial Operations & Strategy to design and stand up the global distributor governance framework, codifying performance standards, oversight cadence, escalation paths and best practice sharing.