Director, HR Business Partner, Therapeutics & R&D

Asklepios BioPharmaceutical, Inc. (AskBio) • Durham, NC

3d • Onsite

About The Position

The Director, HR Business Partner (HRBP) – Therapeutics & R&D is a senior HR leader and trusted advisor to the highest levels of Therapeutics and R&D leadership. This role partners closely with leaders across Therapeutics, Research, Development, and enabling scientific functions to drive organizational effectiveness, talent strategy, and workforce planning in support of AskBio’s scientific mission. This individual operates as a strategic thought partner—shaping future state organization design, succession, and leadership capability—while also remaining hands on, engaged in the day-to-day employee and leader needs of a fast moving, highly technical R&D organization. The role brings an enterprise people lens to leadership decision making—actively challenging, influencing, and advising on people related tradeoffs to balance business outcomes, culture, and organizational risk. This role is accountable not only for functional partnership, but for stewardship of people strategy, governance, and leadership capability with decisions that may carry multi year and company wide impact. The position is located in RTP, NC and reports to the Chief People Officer.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Communication or related field and 10+ years of progressive HR experience
• HR Business Partner experience supporting complex technical or scientific organizations
• Prior experience working in the pharmaceutical, biotech, CRO, CDMO or related industry
• Demonstrated experience partnering with senior leaders on workforce planning, succession, and organizational design
• Strong employee relations and judgment; comfortable navigating ambiguity and sensitive situations with discretion and confidence
• Proven ability to operate at both strategic and tactical levels without losing effectiveness in either
• Strategic mindset with operational bias; able to think long term while executing exceptionally well day to day
• Executive presence; credible, confident, and able to influence senior scientific leaders
• Strong interpersonal skills; builds trust quickly and sustains relationships across levels and disciplines
• Comfort with complexity and pace; thrives in evolving, science driven environments
• Data informed but human centered, balancing analytics with empathy and sound judgment

Nice To Haves

• Advanced degree (MBA, MS) in related field
• Prior experience supporting R&D, Therapeutics, or other highly technical functions in biotech, pharma, or life sciences

Responsibilities

• Serve as a trusted HR advisor and coach to senior leaders (SVP, VP, and Director level) within Therapeutics and R&D, providing counsel on organizational strategy, leadership effectiveness, and people related risk and opportunity
• Partner with leaders to translate business and scientific strategy into people and organizational plans that support growth, innovation, and execution
• Provide candid, data informed insight and challenge to leadership teams, helping them anticipate downstream workforce and organizational implications
• Act as a strategic people advisor to the Therapeutics Leadership Team, bringing enterprise perspective, sound judgement, and constructive challenge to complex decisions impacting talent, culture, and organizational health
• Lead short and long term workforce planning for Therapeutics and R&D, aligning talent needs with pipeline priorities, program milestones, and budget realities
• Partner on organizational design, role clarity, span and layer analysis, and operating model evolution to ensure the organization can scale effectively
• Anticipate future capability gaps and partner with Talent, Learning, and TA to address them proactively
• Ensure workforce and organizational decisions are governed through clear frameworks, tradeoffs, and leadership accountability, aligned with enterprise workforce strategy
• Lead talent reviews and succession planning for critical scientific and leadership roles, ensuring robust pipelines and development plans
• Partner with leaders on performance management, assessment, and development of both people managers and individual contributors in highly specialized scientific roles
• Identify and address retention risks in critical talent populations
• Own the end-to-end integration of core people processes for the Therapeutics leadership population (e.g., talent reviews, succession, rewards, promotion cycles), ensuring clarity of expectations, consistency of application, and disciplined execution across the leadership team
• Provide day to day HR partnership to leaders and managers, including employee relations, performance concerns, team dynamics, and change management
• Support leaders through complex situations with empathy, clarity, and consistency, ensuring alignment with company values and policies
• Be visible and accessible at the RTP site, building trust and credibility with leaders and employees
• Serve as a coach to senior leaders on people leadership—strengthening judgement, consistency, and confidence in managing performance, behavior, communication, and change
• Lead people side planning and execution for organizational changes, including restructures, leadership transitions, and priority shifts within the portfolio
• Reinforce a culture of accountability, inclusion, and continuous learning within scientific teams
• Partner with leaders to drive engagement and translate survey insights into action
• Act as a steward of people risk, compliance, and governance for Therapeutics & R&D
• Provide clear guardrails and guidance on sensitive matters including performance management, investigations, off boarding, references, data access, and confidentiality
• Partner closely with Legal and People & Culture Operations to mitigate legal, reputational, and cultural risk while enabling sound and timely leadership decisions
• Work in close partnership with HR Centers of Excellence (Talent, Rewards, Learning & Development, Inclusion & Engagement) and HR Operations to ensure seamless employee experience and effective program delivery
• Champion clarity of roles between HRBPs, COEs, and Operations, ensuring HR capacity is focused on highest impact work

What This Job Offers

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