Director, Portfolio Planning & Resourcing

AstraZeneca•Gaithersburg, MD

20h•Hybrid

About The Position

AstraZeneca Oncology is leading a revolution to redefine cancer care with a portfolio of launched products providing transformative outcomes for patients around the world and a full suite of modalities fuelling future innovative treatments. In Global Portfolio and Project Management (GPPM), we play a critical role in advancing the pipeline by closely partnering with Research & Development, Commercial and Operations to support decision-making, project management, resource management and governance across the AstraZeneca portfolio. Come join a team-oriented and fast-paced environment that requires integrity, problem solving and agility! The Director, Portfolio Planning & Resourcing owns the Quarterly Business Review process for GPPM oncology, orchestrates the annual scorecard cycle through collaboration with the Portfolio Leads, leads forward-looking capacity planning across the Oncology pipeline , and serves as the primary GPPM partner to Clinical Operations. Reporting to the Head of Oncology Portfolio Strategy and Management, the Director, Portfolio Planning & Resourcing ensures that portfolio ambition is always grounded in operational and financial reality, and that the Oncology R&D organisation can effectively deploy its resources aligned to the portfolio priority with agility.

Requirements

Bachelors degree in Science, Business, Finance or similar subject
Significant experience working within a global biopharmaceutical environment, with a strong understanding of drug development, portfolio management, and R&D business planning cycles
Proven ability to own and manage complex cross-functional processes, delivering integrated outputs on time and to a high standard
Strong analytical capability with the ability to synthesise resource, capacity, and portfolio data into clear, decision-ready insight
Experience working in partnership with Finance, Clinical Operations, or equivalent enterprise functions in a complex, global organisation
Excellent stakeholder management, able to build trusted relationships, influence, and drive alignment across functions and seniority levels
Strong communication skills, able to translate operational complexity into clear, executive-level outputs
Ability to operate effectively in ambiguity and manage multiple competing workstreams simultaneously
Strong business insight; commitment to the Oncology purpose; curiosity about the portfolio and understanding of priorities
Ability to work with enterprise-facing teams to redesign and simplify processes
Demonstrated curiosity and openness to AI-enabled tools and experience in simplifying ways of working

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree in a scientific field and/or MBA
Experience working at the interface of resource and capacity management and portfolio strategy, and experience with enterprise portfolio and capacity planning systems (e.g. PLANIT or equivalent)
Direct experience managing QBR, scorecard, and Annual Business Cycle processes
Track record of driving process redesign and simplification in a complex, matrixed environment

Responsibilities

Build and maintain an integrated view of planning, capacity, and resources across the full Oncology pipeline, enabling leadership to make confident data-driven decisions about where to invest, where to flex, and where to make trade-offs
Own the Scorecard and Oncology Quarterly Business Review (QBR) process in partnership with finance and portfolio leads, integrating inputs from portfolio leads, Clinical Operations, and Finance to produce accurate and timely outputs for Oncology leadership
Serve as the primary GPPM partner to Clinical Operations, working closely with the Clinical Operations analytics team to build and maintain a single source of truth for portfolio-level operational data (active patients, studies, sites) for QBR
Ensure clinical delivery metrics are consistently integrated into QBR and portfolio performance reporting, providing leadership with a clear, real-time picture of pipeline delivery.
Partner with Clinical Operations to improve data and reporting quality
Lead forward-looking R&D capacity and resource planning across the Oncology pipeline, translating milestones and portfolio scenarios into a clear view of demand and resourcing, highlighting bottlenecks
Act as the primary liaison between GPPM and functional capacity leads, orchestrating the processes that surface resource constraints and demand signals at portfolio level
Build a strong working partnership with Finance, ensuring resource and capacity planning assumptions are aligned with financial planning cycles and portfolio investment decisions
Provide Finance with clear, well-structured resource and capacity inputs that support Annual Business Cycle deliverables including Long-Term Planning and Phased Budget
Drive consistency in capacity planning methodologies, assumptions, and timelines across functions across TAs, acting as the process owner for how resource and capacity information flows into portfolio governance
Partner with project managers and Portfolio Leads to ensure resource plans reflect portfolio priorities and investment decisions
Work with enterprise-facing teams, including GPPM, R&D COO, Clinical Operations, Finance, and Enterprise AI teams to redesign and simplify how planning, resourcing, and reporting processes are structured and delivered
Find opportunities and execute on initiatives to simplify the process, leverage system and automation, increase transparency and modernise ways of working, including the thoughtful use of digital and AI-enabled tools
Engage senior stakeholders with confidence, translating planning complexity into clear, decision-useful outputs and narratives