Finance Strategy and Cross-Organization Excellence Lead

Sanofi•Cambridge, MA

8d•Hybrid

About The Position

Ready to push the limits of what’s possible? Join Sanofi in one of our corporate functions and you can play a vital part in the performance of our entire business while helping to make an impact on millions around the world. Position Overview: The Finance Strategy & Cross-Organization Excellence Lead is a senior strategic leadership role within the Specialty Care Finance organization, reporting directly to Ulrich Otte, the Global Head of Finance, Specialty Care. This position represents a rare opportunity to architect the strategic future of one of Sanofi's most dynamic, high-growth, and strategically critical business units — and to do so with enterprise-wide impact. Specialty Care delivers $23B+ in annual sales with $4B in operating expenses, spanning a complex global portfolio across multiple therapeutic franchises including Immunology, Rare Disease, Rare Blood Disorders, and Neurology. As the organization accelerates its pipeline and prepares for a wave of transformative product launches, the finance function must evolve from a traditional support role into a true strategic partner — one that shapes business decisions, drives enterprise value, and enables competitive advantage. This role sits at the apex of strategic vision, operational excellence, and cross-organizational leadership. The Finance Strategy & Cross-Organization Excellence Lead will serve as a senior strategic advisor to the Global Head of Finance and the Specialty Care Leadership Team, driving high-impact initiatives that define how Specialty Care competes, grows, and operates in the future. Critically, this role is transversal in nature, requiring deep collaboration and co-partnership of strategy across Specialty Care (SPC), Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), Business Development (BD), and Investor Relations (IR). The scope of this role extends beyond finance transformation — it encompasses strategy development, strategic resource allocation, investment prioritization, external innovation and optimization for Specialty Care. About Sanofi We’re an R&D-driven, AI-powered biopharma company committed to improving people’s lives and delivering compelling growth. Our deep understanding of the immune system – and innovative pipeline – enables us to invent medicines and vaccines that treat and protect millions of people around the world. Together, we chase the miracles of science to improve people’s lives.

Requirements

15+ years of progressive experience in finance, strategy, business transformation, or program management, with demonstrated progression into senior strategic leadership roles.
Proven track record of leading enterprise-level, cross-functional strategic initiatives with measurable and significant business impact across multiple organizational dimensions.
Demonstrated experience in product launch strategy, including financial modeling, investment planning, and cross-functional launch coordination in a commercial biopharmaceutical or healthcare context.
Deep expertise in portfolio strategy, pipeline planning, and capital allocation within a complex, multi-franchise business environment.
Experience working transversally across Commercial, M&A, Business Development, and Investor Relations functions, with the ability to integrate diverse strategic inputs into coherent financial frameworks.
Exceptional executive communication and stakeholder management skills, with a demonstrated ability to influence C-suite and senior leadership and to simplify highly complex strategic issues into clear, actionable recommendations.
Strong advanced financial modeling and quantitative analysis capabilities, including scenario modeling, valuation, and competitive benchmarking.
Experience operating within a global, matrixed organization with significant cross-cultural and cross-geographic complexity.
Bachelor's degree in Finance, Business, Economics, or a related field; MBA or advanced degree strongly preferred.

Nice To Haves

Deep expertise in biopharma commercial and launch strategy, including experience supporting multiple product launches across different therapeutic areas and geographies.
Familiarity with M&A economics, including transaction strategy, deal structuring, integration modeling, and outcomes-based frameworks.
Experience supporting Business Development and M&A transactions, including financial due diligence, valuation modeling, and post-deal integration planning.
Proficiency with digital finance tools (e.g., Power BI, advanced analytics platforms, AI-enabled forecasting, process automation).
Lean Six Sigma, PMP, or other transformation and project management certifications.
Experience in investor relations support, including development of financial narratives for external audiences.
Familiarity with competitive intelligence frameworks and strategic scenario planning methodologies.

Responsibilities

Serve as a senior strategic advisor to the Global Head of Finance, Specialty Care, providing data-driven insights, scenario analyses, and strategic recommendations that directly inform executive decision-making.
Support the development and annual refresh of the Specialty Care long-range strategic plan (LRP), integrating financial modeling, pipeline assumptions, competitive dynamics, and market evolution across all therapeutic franchises.
Represent Finance in senior leadership forums.
Synthesize complex, multi-dimensional business challenges into clear strategic options and executive-ready recommendations, enabling faster and higher-quality decisions at the leadership level.
Proactively identify emerging strategic risks and opportunities — including competitive threats, regulatory shifts, and macroeconomic trends — and translate them into actionable financial and operational responses.
Support the financial and strategic architecture for new product and new indication launches across Specialty Care's therapeutic portfolio, partnering with Commercial, M&A, and Regulatory to ensure launch readiness from a strategic and financial perspective.
Partner with Investor Relations (IR) to ensure narratives are financially coherent, externally credible, and aligned with guidance commitments.
Support launch performance dashboards
Act as the strategic connective tissue across Specialty Care (SPC), Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), Business Development (BD), and Investor Relations (IR), ensuring that strategies developed within each function are financially integrated, mutually reinforcing, and aligned to the overall Specialty Care ambition.
Lead transversal strategic initiatives that span multiple SPC franchises, driving coherence across Immunology, Rare Disease, Rare Blood Disorders, and Neurology in areas such as resource allocation, operating model design, and shared capability investment.
Partner with IR to develop the financial narrative for Specialty Care's pipeline and launch portfolio, ensuring that external communications on growth drivers, margin trajectory, and investment priorities are grounded in rigorous internal financial analysis.
Integrate M&A strategy into launch financial models and long-range plans, incorporating transaction landscape analysis, deal risk scenarios, and integration assumptions into investment decisions and revenue forecasts.
Provide strategic and financial analysis to support BD evaluation of in-licensing, partnership, and acquisition opportunities within the Specialty Care therapeutic space; develop financial frameworks for assessing strategic fit, value creation potential, and portfolio impact of BD transactions.
Facilitate cross-organizational strategy alignment sessions to resolve strategic tensions, prioritize competing investment demands, and build shared ownership of enterprise-level outcomes.
Support the Specialty Care portfolio strategy process, working with franchise heads, R&D finance, and Global Strategy to evaluate the current and future portfolio against strategic objectives, competitive positioning, and financial return thresholds.
Support design and implementation of portfolio scenario analyses to evaluate the financial and strategic implications of different pipeline configurations, including asset acceleration, deprioritization, or out-licensing decisions.
Partner and Embed M&A and BD financial modeling into the core of Specialty Care's strategic planning processes, ensuring that potential transactions and integration strategies are evaluated through a rigorous financial lens.
Ensure advanced financial models that support strategic decision-making across the full range of Specialty Care's business activities, including launch planning, portfolio prioritization, M&A evaluation, and operating model design.
Ensure capital allocation optimization models help leadership allocate OPEX and investment resources across franchises, geographies, and functions in a way that maximizes strategic value and financial return.
Lead end-to-end delivery of strategic finance initiatives, from problem definition and business case development through implementation and measurable value realization.
Drive efficiency and ROI initiatives as an immediate priority, identifying, designing, and executing cost reduction, productivity, and process optimization opportunities across Specialty Care.
Identify $50M+ of OPEX savings in Year 1; 90% SPC adherence to BO processes/guidelines (i.e., meetings and events, GTMC).
Identify an additional $25M+ in Year 2 through portfolio rationalization and operating model optimization.
Translate competitive intelligence and market evolution into strategic financial implications, quantifying the potential revenue and margin impact of competitive entries, label expansions, or pricing actions on Specialty Care's portfolio.
Champion the digital transformation of Specialty Care Finance, identifying and prioritizing opportunities to leverage advanced analytics, AI/ML, automation, and digital tools to enhance the quality, speed, and strategic value of financial analysis and reporting.
Develop a Finance Innovation Roadmap for Specialty Care, outlining a multi-year vision for how digital capabilities will transform the finance function's operating model and strategic contribution.
Partner with Global Digital, and enabling functions to accelerate adoption of new finance technologies, including Power BI, predictive analytics platforms, and process automation tools.
Establish innovation governance frameworks that ensure digital investments in Finance are prioritized based on strategic value, implementation feasibility, and measurable ROI.
Lead change management efforts associated with digital transformation, ensuring that finance teams across Specialty Care develop the capabilities and mindsets needed to operate effectively in a digitally enabled environment.
Establish robust project governance frameworks, KPIs, dashboards, and measurement systems to ensure transparency, accountability, and effective decision-making across the strategic project portfolio.
Partner with finance leadership and key business stakeholders to define and prioritize the project portfolio aligned with strategic and operational objectives.
Collaborate across Specialty Care, Global Finance, Digital, and enabling functions to accelerate adoption of new processes, tools, and technologies.
Champion continuous improvement and lead change management efforts to ensure sustainability of project outcomes.
Prepare executive-ready materials and provide regular updates to senior leadership on project progress, risks, dependencies, and financial impact.