Director, Portfolio Management

GSK•Upper Providence, PA

3h•Hybrid

About The Position

The purpose of this role is to partner with the Head, Portfolio Decision Sciences, Respiratory, Immunology & Inflammation (RI&I) to support the portfolio throughout the R&D lifecycle (from preclinical Research to late-stage clinical Development), covering the RI&I and broader Pharmaceutical pipeline. This includes individual project assessments, and addressing strategic and operational portfolio questions to help progress and enhance the pipeline. As a portfolio decision scientist in R&D, you will work directly with pipeline project teams and governance boards to evaluate investment opportunities where there is still significant uncertainty and limited data. You will need to adopt systematic approaches in assessing uncertainties and risks, and conduct probabilistic evaluations to guide technical progression and investment decisions. Economic analyses (including ROI and NPV) will cover different development options and highlight points for discussion in key scenarios and/or sensitivities. Your work with pipeline project teams (including project leaders, functional leads, etc.) and across the organisation (Strategy, Business Development, Finance, Commercial, etc.) will lead to robust recommendations that inform decision-making at senior R&D Leadership fora (including PIB, DRB, and the Research Unit investment boards). To be effective, the person in this role must be highly skilled in using data-driven portfolio analyses from not only internal, but also external perspectives to generate clear, objective and concise insights. This person will be expected to drive challenging conversations in an open and constructive manner to generate strategically-differentiated investment options, provide clear objective analyses and insights to support pipeline investment decisions, and utilise cutting-edge data trends/technology capabilities for portfolio decision making. The successful candidate is a portfolio expert with extensive R&D experience, as well as a change agent and innovative thinker, comfortable navigating the extended RI&I and/or R&D ecosystem at GSK to ensure success of the entire unit. This person is intellectually curious with a track record of seeking out novel solutions to both project-specific and portfolio-wide issues and demonstrates a high level of energy, enthusiasm and commitment, and who monitors the external environment for advances in data and technology that could be applied to portfolio management and high-quality decision making at GSK.

Requirements

Proven experience of pharmaceutical, healthcare or related industry experience
Bachelor’s Degree in a related field
Understanding of Commercial and/or R&D processes with experience in leading or supporting project teams in drug development preferred
A track record of independent delivery on projects
Demonstrate matrix management skills and clear ability to work effectively in a senior cross-functional team environment
Demonstrate aptitude for managing multiple projects and priorities
Apply skills to achieve expedited project delivery; including coordination and planning, fostering teamwork, and thinking strategically
Demonstrate effective communication and negotiation skills for a wide variety of audiences, including senior management
Demonstrate strong influencing skills and personal resilience, with sufficient depth in drug development to engage R&D leaders as a peer, constructively challenge development plans and shape decisions without formal authority
Apply a well organised and methodical approach to problem-solving
Set up processes and encourage others to create multiple options, strategies or contingency plans, where pros and cons are compared prior to deciding on the way forward

Nice To Haves

High learning agility required to understand and facilitate technical, value and resourcing discussions to achieve the governance outcomes.
PhD, MBA, other Advanced Degree
Strong written and verbal communication skills to translate detailed scientific, technical and resource discussions into clear and concise presentations and recommendations.
Adept at building trust and credibility with senior leaders and project teams to be sought after as a strategic thought partner and challenger.
Cross-functional stakeholder management skills
Demonstrated success in enabling and driving change

Responsibilities

Guiding pipeline project teams across the R&D lifecycle (from preclinical to late-stage clinical development, and including business development) through strategic decisions and economic analyses (e.g. eliciting the probability of success, assessing the economics [ROI and NPV] of different project development options), facilitating team decision making and option evaluation, and bridging portfolio- and project-level considerations between senior leaders and teams
Working with pipeline project teams to provide objective individual project assessments for R&D investment decisions at RI&I RU board, other Research Unit R&D governance and the Portfolio Investment Board (PIB)
Providing specific recommendation(s) to investment body chair(s) on the opportunities being assessed, based on rigorous analyses of options, value-risk assessment, clear delineation of where risk is discharged, and how to optimise use of resources and capabilities
Leading portfolio- or indication-level assessments to enable senior GSK leaders to make portfolio prioritisation and investment decisions, highlighting trade-offs based upon multiple factors (including scientific, clinical, commercial, strategic, operational, and financial)
Bringing the external lens to portfolio and investment decisions, applying an equity analyst mindset to assess our assets as the market would by testing valuation assumptions, PTRS and peak sales against sell-and competitor benchmarks.
Supporting the biannual dynamic Portfolio Review (dPR) process for RI&I, ensuring refreshed pipeline project views and surfacing of new investment opportunities, and informing the RI&I portfolio prioritisation to optimise how functions deploy resources
Collaborating with colleagues across the portfolio management team, the broader finance group, the Research Unit leaders, and partners in strategy, project management, operations, etc to recommend areas of short-term and longer-term focus from a disease area, indication, modality perspective and offer risk mitigation approaches to optimise the GSK portfolio overall including optimisation of resources
Driving portfolio management effectiveness and efficiency by monitoring the external environment for insights on overall portfolio management, evaluating specific portfolio approaches in your areas (e.g. disease area or modality), and proposing use-cases to apply such innovations to portfolio decision making at GSK
Enhancing the development of and deploying advanced analytics, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, to inform and shape decisions by teams and senior leaders