Director, D&A Strategy, Ophthalmology

MSD • Upper Gwynedd Township, PA

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

This role will reside within the Digital Human Health (DHH) US Market Engagement Team. This team provides strategic thought-partnership to US commercial stakeholders through understanding brand strategy, co-creating DHH demand and associated business requirements aligned to business priorities. The US Market Engagement team quarterbacks demand fulfillment and leads the activation of DHH products and services. The Director will be responsible for developing and communicating data-driven and actionable insights that drive greater customer and market understanding to inform launch & go-to market strategies and help meet commercial objectives. The individual in this role will be an independent contributor, as well as lead a team, supporting commercial insight and analytics needs for US marketing teams. The person will have demonstrated consistently strong leadership skills, an ability to work objectively and deal well with ambiguity and strong partnership skills. They will empower a growth mindset and inspire a culture of continual learning. This role will require interfacing and collaborating with many teams requiring strong communication skills.

Requirements

• Minimum of 8 years of marketing insights and strategy support and expertise in delivering complex analytical projects in the pharmaceutical/biotech industry using brand analytics, market research and/or large patient or physician databases for US
• Experience and/or deep knowledge in Ophthalmology
• Minimum 3+ years in leading commercial insights teams
• Knowledge in mining patient medical claims/EMR data with a strategic mindset and proven record of being able to produce actionable business insights that drive positive commercial results.
• Self-motivated, proactive mindset, and ability to work independently.
• Story-telling and executive presence with senior leaders.
• Effective interpersonal skills, communication skills, and stakeholder management, including experience collaborating in a matrixed organization and ability to align stakeholders on data-driven decisions.
• Strong business acumen and consultative skills, with proven ability to comprehend business processes and commercial strategies in detail and translate these into detailed business standards/questions that power analytics.
• Effective organizational and project management skills to work effectively across the organization and manage a team of business analysts and data scientists efficiently and effectively.
• Innovative thinking with affinity toward experimentation and appropriate risk-taking, including curiosity about how agentic AI and automation can enhance commercial analytics and insight generation.
• Awareness of the opportunities, limitations, and responsible use of AI (including agentic AI) in a regulated environment (e.g., data privacy, validation of AI-generated outputs).
• Prior hands-on experience working with healthcare data especially EMR/EHR, Claims Data (i.e. IQVIA APLD) and various data offerings.

Nice To Haves

• The preferred candidate will have an entrepreneurial spirit, consultative and strategic mindset, experience in Ophthalmology & technology (AI, agentic etc.), and a demonstrated record of producing actionable insights from analytics.

Responsibilities

• Engage with disease aligned teams and leaders across the US Ophthalmology commercial organizations to understand their strategic priorities across the commercial value chain for launch and in-line portfolio.
• Translate priorities into business needs and enable interconnected problem solving.
• Be a thought leader and strategic partner for commercial teams and senior marketing leaders.
• Engage, influence and, if needed, challenge commercial partners as an equal partner.
• Establish and manage close relationships with partners and stakeholders within DHH, marketing, sales, business operations, medical and finance.
• Lead Associate Directors, Senior Specialists and Specialists with direct line management responsibility.
• The candidate should be able to lead their own teams and cross-functional insights Pods, comprised of cross-functional stakeholder groups across DHH and other parts of the organization.
• Translate business needs and priorities to build analytical plans that answer business questions by providing actionable insights.
• Effectively communicating advanced analytics to stakeholders to inform business decisions.
• Communicate & collaborate effectively with cross functional teams with competencies in market research, forecasting, commercial analytics, data science, customer engagement, data strategy, population health, competitive insights, marketing operations, medical & clinical backgrounds.
• Develop and own commercial insight generation strategy and roadmap, applying the latest technological advancements such as AI to strengthen efficiency & productivity
• Articulate how the work, done till date, ties to business priorities, identify unmet needs and gaps that need to be addressed.
• Develop a plan to address the additional needs and/or gaps to enable brand and commercial strategy by working with the functional leaders across DHH organization.
• Understand the full book of work underway and planned to support a disease area or business unit.
• Work with marketing leadership to prioritize the work that needs to be done considering the capacity availability within DHH.
• For the prioritized work, engage DHH cross-functional teams to articulate the value/impact of each piece of work.
• Create a process to better articulate the ‘so what’ and ‘now what’ and track realized business value.
• The ideal candidate will lead an insight team consisting of functional teams across market research, data strategy, forecasting, resource effectiveness, measurement, marketing/sales operations, digital analytics, competitive insights and strategy.
• The candidate should have experience leading cross-functional teams (direct line management and indirect management of individuals with a dotted reporting line) in their prior roles and demonstrated the ability to develop talent, create a team culture that brings the best out of everyone in the team.
• Individuals in this role should also have shown the ability to mentor and coach teams.
• The individual will develop the next generation of leaders within DHH (Digital Human Health).
• It is critical for the candidate to create a team culture where team members are focused on ‘things that matter’, empowered to act with urgency, actively innovate and are supported through continuous learning and feedback process.
• The chosen candidate should be a leader that strongly believes and embraces diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.
• The person should be able to identify the data, analytics and research needs to define, enable, and inform commercial strategies of our brand and business leaders.
• The selected candidate should have a good understanding of US data landscape, commercial analytics capabilities, and technology, including application of GenAI to drive effectiveness.
• The individual who will thrive in this role will be motivated by developing a deep appreciation of pharma secondary data sources and possess an ability to define and translate objectives and business questions into analytical problems that require advanced and scalable solutions that produce actionable insights.
• Understand the full book of work underway and planned to support a disease area or business unit.
• Work with marketing leadership to prioritize the work that needs to be done considering the capacity availability within DHH.
• For the prioritized work, engage DHH cross-functional teams to articulate the value/impact of each piece of work.
• Create a process to better articulate the ‘so what’ and ‘now what’ and track realized business value.

Benefits

• The successful candidate will be eligible for annual bonus and long-term incentive, if applicable.
• We offer a comprehensive package of benefits. Available benefits include medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, including 401(k), paid holidays, vacation, and compassionate and sick days.
• More information about benefits is available at https://jobs.merck.com/us/en/compensation-and-benefits.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed