Exec. Dir. , Data Strategy

MSD•North Wales, PA

7d•Hybrid

About The Position

This individual is responsible for ensuring Human Health (HH) has an industry‑leading strategy and approach to sourcing, creating, and activating commercial data assets that inform business‑critical decisions and actions across US business units (Oncology, Vaccines, Pharma, Respiratory, Rare Disease). This leader will create, own, and implement the HH US data asset strategy and innovation agenda across commercial data domains (HCP, consumer, payer, patient, account, engagement, and related sources). The role maximizes the return on HH’s substantial annual investment in third‑party data and unlocks value from first‑party, unstructured data assets while ensuring compliance with applicable US privacy and regulatory requirements.

Requirements

Strategic understanding of our business portfolio and ability to anticipate data gaps/opportunities for our product portfolio
Strategic planning and prioritization of demand and innovation aligned to TA needs, LROP requirements, and platform evolution
Able to drive risk mitigation strategies and represent a Digital/Analytics org in Legal, Privacy, and Global Ethics forums
Able to lead large and high performing cross functional teams in matrixed organizations
Need to be an excellent collaborator, proactive planner and strategic thinker that can execute flawlessly with the greatest levels of operational excellence and financial discipline.
Experience in working with enterprise/central data functions and unstructured data to support key programs and initiatives (e.g., Marketing, Sales, Account Management, Market Access, Content, Engagement/Activity, Alliances)
Understanding of how data layers support downstream use cases in brand, forecasting, and patient support
Hands-on experience with Enterprise data strategy, data management, developing data platforms & analytical solutions, including FAIR, consented, & payer data integration
Deep expertise in commercial pharma data domains with extensive experience in applied data and insights using real world data assets
Experience with global data strategy, product engineering, and digital innovation programs
Proven success in attracting, nurturing and developing talent.
Familiarity with agile product development, API orchestration, and data privacy requirements (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR)
15+ years in data strategy, governance, engineering, data products, or consulting in pharma or life sciences
Master’s or PhD in Quantitative Business Analytics, Quantitative Sciences, Engineering or Operations Research, Pharm D, Medical Sciences

Nice To Haves

MBA or innovation/entrepreneurial certification preferred
Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP)
Biopharmaceutical Industry
Biopharmaceutics
Business Strategies
Communication
Contract Management
Data Management
Data Quality Control
Financial Planning
Governance Management
Leadership
Oncology
Operational Excellence
Privacy Compliance
Quality Management
Risk Management and Mitigation
Risk Mitigation Strategies
Strategic Planning
Technical Advice
Vendor Selection
Waterfall Model

Responsibilities

Treat data as a strategic asset to empower the organization to drive innovation, make informed decisions, and create competitive advantage for HH US.
Shapes HH US data strategy and innovative solutions across core capabilities & business units for inline and pipeline products.
Partner across DHH, broader HH, Information Technology (IT), Commercial, Research & Development, Market Access, Legal, Privacy, and other stakeholders to extract maximum commercial value from data assets.
Own accountability for managing US data privacy and compliance risks associated with data access and use, ensuring alignment with HIPAA, CCPA/CPRA (as applicable), contractual requirements and internal policies.
Maintain a deep understanding of the US commercial data landscape (1st, 2nd and 3rd party assets spanning HCP, consumer, payer, patient, account, etc.) and assess the relative commercial value of each asset.
Continuously scan the US market for new data assets, partnership opportunities (publishers, payers, health systems, technology vendors), and emerging commercial data technologies.
Oversee US data needs assessments by gathering input from analytics and business stakeholders, identifying gaps versus the ideal state, prioritizing gaps and building execution plans.
Lead acquisition of new external assets, formation of partnerships to co-create assets, and internal initiatives to capture additional US first party data where needed.
Lead data innovation initiatives to enable better utilization of our investments and to create value through new innovative ways to utilize, create and deliver marketing and sales insights.
Identify, operationalize and enable ‘out of the box’ solutions to transform ‘data to insights’ aligned to the L3 framework to meet the needs of various business units and market activation teams.
Collaborate closely with US market activation teams, Global Marketing Engagement, Central Data & Analytics office, Digital Data Product Teams, Commercial data solutions and Other DHH and HH teams to ensure correct technical implementation and measurable value realization.
Establish and maintain productive working relationships with US and global data vendors; responsible for vendor selection, contracting input, performance oversight and portfolio management.
Implements “Privacy and Compliance by design” frameworks from Enterprise functions across internal and external datasets, ensuring alignment with global regulations (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA) and contract standards
Build and deliver training and change programs to promote responsible data use and adoption across US commercial teams.
Lead and maintain partnerships with SP data aggregation and integration partners to identify best in class practices.
Responsible for SP data aggregation and integration work for our company's portfolio.
Work closely with Central Data and Analytics organization to enable ingestion and onboarding of data, implement the appropriate data quality frameworks, the right data models and ensure the data makes it to through the medallion architecture to the right data products, to serve the various DHH, IT and HH prioritized use cases.
Enable the right data strategy and partnership to enable data onboarding from various patient services programs – Patient services programs, Patient hub...
Responsible for partnering with large cross functional teams to maximize the value created, delivered and realized from the data investments in the US.
Responsible for the data procurement, contract management, financial planning for all data investments made in the US to support our company's HH division.