Senior Director, Commercial Operations

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals•Cambridge, MA

About The Position

The Senior Director, Commercial Operations is a strategic and operational leader responsible for building and advancing the capabilities, processes, systems, and services that enable commercial performance. The role is a senior business partner to Sales, Marketing, Market Access, Medical Affairs, Finance, and other cross-functional leaders, translating commercial strategy into disciplined execution across field operations, incentive compensation, and CRM. The leader develops scalable operating models, strengthens the ability to assess field execution, and provides enterprise leadership for incentive compensation strategy and governance. The role has two to three direct reports, leverages technology and automation, and ensures initiatives and resources are deployed effectively and in accordance with applicable policies and compliance requirements. The position leads operational excellence, incentive compensation strategy and delivery, field operations and sales execution, commercial systems and automation, and cross-functional partnership. It manages operating expenses and cost-center budgets within scope, leads vendors and partners, and builds and develops a high-performing team. The role serves as a trusted advisor to senior Commercial leaders and works across a matrixed organization to support commercial strategy, investment, execution, and organizational readiness.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree required; a degree in life sciences, business, finance, or a related field is preferred.
10+ years of progressive experience in biopharma commercial operations, sales operations, field effectiveness, incentive compensation, or a related commercial discipline.
5+ years of people-management experience, with demonstrated success building teams, developing talent, and achieving results through others.
Proven ability to translate strategy into pragmatic, scalable processes, systems, controls, and actions.
Experience leading cross-functional initiatives and managing interdependent deliverables in a matrixed organization.
Excellent executive communication, presentation, interpersonal, influencing, and negotiation skills.
Demonstrated judgment, integrity, learning agility, and ability to perform effectively in a high-growth, fast-paced environment.

Responsibilities

Partner with commercial leadership to translate business, brand, and field strategies into integrated operating plans, priorities, capabilities, and execution roadmaps.
Assess current operations, selectively benchmark external practices, and implement scalable solutions that improve effectiveness, efficiency, quality, and speed.
Identify and eliminate low-value, duplicative, or fragmented work; simplify processes and clarify governance, decision rights, and accountability.
Manage operating expenses and cost-center budgets within scope, including forecasting, prioritization, and vendor oversight.
Provide strategic oversight of the enterprise Incentive Compensation program, ensuring plans for eligible commercial field roles align with business strategy, brand priorities, role expectations, market dynamics, and desired field behaviors.
Guide senior leaders on incentive compensation design choices, tradeoffs, risks, and implications.
Lead Incentive Compensation governance and decision-making, establishing standards, decision rights, approval processes, controls, and cross-functional alignment.
Oversee end-to-end Incentive Compensation delivery, including plan design, modeling, goal and quota setting, administration, calculations, payout validation, inquiries, disputes, and exception management.
Set the strategic direction and accountability for the Incentive Compensation capability; monitor plan effectiveness and business impact, manage vendor performance, drive continuous improvement and automation, build a multi-year capability roadmap, and develop a high-performing team.
Lead field operations capabilities, including field-force sizing and deployment, territory design and alignment, customer targeting and segmentation, call planning, resource optimization, field communications, and execution monitoring.
Partner with Sales and other field leadership to identify business challenges and opportunities and deploy tools, processes, and resources that improve customer engagement and field productivity.
Establish a disciplined field communication and sales execution program supporting consistent rollout of priorities, initiatives, tools, and performance expectations.
Maintain connection to the field and customer environment through appropriate engagement and feedback mechanisms, translating feedback into practical execution improvements.
Partner with IT, AADS, Training, and business stakeholders to define and execute commercial CRM and technology strategy.
Integrate and automate CRM, sales-force automation, incentive compensation, reporting, and field tools to streamline work, strengthen controls, and improve productivity.
Identify and implement technologies and capabilities that improve execution, information flow, deliverable quality, and user experience.
Ensure appropriate governance, quality assurance, adoption, and compliant use of commercial systems, tools, and resources.
Build, develop, and lead an effective, unified team with clear accountabilities, strong capabilities, and a culture of collaboration, candor, inclusion, and continuous improvement.
Serve as a trusted advisor to senior Commercial leaders and contribute to decisions affecting commercial strategy, investment, execution, and organizational readiness.
Collaborate across Sales, Marketing, Market Access, Medical Affairs, Finance, HR, Legal, Compliance, IT, and other functions to deliver integrated outcomes.
Influence without direct authority, resolve competing priorities, and achieve results through teams in a fast-paced, matrixed environment.
Select, manage, and hold external partners accountable for quality, value, service, controls, and delivery.