Senior Director Commercialization Investment Strategy

UT Southwestern Medical Center • Dallas, TX

2d

About The Position

The Senior Director, Commercialization and Investment Strategy supports the Innovation Hub by leading venture-informed commercialization strategy, investment diligence, investor readiness, and NewCo formation support for high-potential UT Southwestern discoveries. The role operates within UT Southwestern's Discovery Track and DIMS frameworks. Discovery Tracks (DTs) are the Innovation Hub's structured pathways for identifying, evaluating, prioritizing, and advancing campus discoveries with translational or commercial potential. DIMS (Discovery Information Management System) is the Innovation Hub's required operating system and system of record for DT intake, triage, diligence, milestone tracking, partner interactions, decision documentation, and handoffs across Innovation Hub teams. This position is responsible for integrating scientific, clinical, commercial, intellectual property, competitive landscape, and investor perspectives to help determine which DTs merit institutional support, what value-creating milestones should be pursued, and what evidence packages are required for future investor, partner, or NewCo readiness. The Senior Director is expected to apply venture capital-grade rigor while recognizing the distinct context of academic innovation. The Senior Director reports to the Chief Innovation Officer and works closely with the Assistant Vice President, Innovation and Partnerships, Commercialization Strategy Partners (CSPs), Business Development (BD), the Office for Technology Development (OTD), intellectual property, legal, finance, compliance, faculty teams, and approved external advisors. The Senior Director provides analysis, strategy, recommendations, and leadership support.

Requirements

• Advanced degree in life sciences, pharmaceutical sciences, medicine, pharmacy, biomedical sciences, business, or a related discipline is required.
• M.D., Pharm.D., Ph.D., MBA, or equivalent experience in life sciences investing, venture creation, biotechnology strategy, or academic commercialization may be considered.
• 10 years of progressively responsible experience in life sciences venture capital, biotechnology company building, business development, translational science, technology commercialization, or comparable investment/diligence roles.
• Demonstrated experience evaluating therapeutic or biomedical assets across diverse modalities and stages of development, including scientific rationale, preclinical development path, competitive landscape, IP position, market opportunity, financing potential, and investor readiness.
• Strong understanding of therapeutic development, preclinical PK/PD, clinical pharmacology, regulatory development considerations, competitive benchmarking, and value inflection points.

Nice To Haves

• Experience as a venture capital investor, principal, vice president, venture fellow, entrepreneur-in-residence, investor-in-residence, company builder, or senior member of a venture-backed biotechnology company.
• Experience within or adjacent to an academic medical center, university technology transfer office, translational research program, incubator, accelerator, or institutional innovation fund.
• Established U.S. and global network across life sciences venture capital, biotech, pharmaceutical companies, company builders, founders, KOLs, scientific advisors, clinical experts, and strategic partners.
• Experience recruiting external scientific, clinical, commercial, entrepreneurial, or investor expertise to fill program gaps and stress-test assumptions.

Responsibilities

• Discovery Track Identification and Portfolio Strategy: Identifies promising campus discoveries for the Discovery Track framework, develops opportunity summaries and strategic assessments, prioritizes DT opportunities, routes potential DTs through the intake and triage process, and coordinates with relevant teams to determine advancement.
• DIMS Operating System and Portfolio Governance: Uses DIMS as the system of record for DT-related work, improves DIMS workflows and functionality, maintains timely and accurate DIMS documentation, and supports DT portfolio governance by participating in reviews and tracking progress.
• Investment Strategy and Institutional Funding Diligence: Supports the Innovation Hub’s investment strategy by applying venture-informed diligence, develops Target Product Profiles and competitive landscape assessments, integrates expert perspectives to stress-test assumptions, identifies critical experiments and milestones, and develops diligence summaries and investment memos.
• External Expert, Venture Capital, and Strategic Investor Engagement: Engages external stakeholders to obtain feedback and assess investor relevance, builds and maintains dialogue with VC and strategic groups, coordinates external outreach plans, ensures documentation of investor interactions in DIMS, and supports preparation of investor-facing materials.
• Strategic Narrative and Stakeholder Engagement: Constructs clear scientific, commercial, and investor-facing narratives for DTs, supports communications with internal and external leaders, helps communicate the Innovation Hub’s value proposition, and ensures accuracy and alignment of external-facing materials.
• NewCo Formation and Syndicate Readiness: Supports evaluation of NewCo formation potential, helps identify potential entrepreneurs and advisors, contributes to NewCo planning materials, coordinates handoffs to relevant institutional teams, and supports syndicate development and investor readiness.
• Team-Based Operating Model, Handoffs, and Collaboration: Operates as a senior member of the Innovation Hub team, respects established relationship ownership and operating lanes, ensures coordinated DT-related interactions, may mentor junior staff, and escalates disagreements or ambiguities to leadership.

Benefits

• PPO medical plan, available day one at no cost for full-time employee-only coverage
• 100%25 coverage for preventive healthcare-no copay
• Paid Time Off, available day one
• Retirement Programs through the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS)
• Paid Parental Leave Benefit
• Wellness programs
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Qualified Employer

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director