Senior Director, Global Head of Sample Management

GSK•Upper Providence, PA

9d•$205,425 - $342,375•Hybrid

About The Position

GSK is bringing physical and digital sample management together under one global leader. The Senior Director, Global Head of Sample Management will lead a global organization spanning automated storage, sample preparation and logistics, automation engineering, and a digital sample platform built and owned within the function. The organization serves the company’s range of modalities, including small molecules, large molecules, oligonucleotides, conjugates, and emerging formats. The role reports to the VP, Data, Automation and Predictive Sciences and is part of the DAPS leadership team. The position will set the standard for sample management needed to support GSK’s Lab-in-an-Automated-Loop programme and increasingly autonomous design–make–test–analyse research. It will bring the physical operation and digital product together as a single system, enabling timely registration, reliable storage, automated preparation and delivery, and the cycle times, data quality, and traceability required for closed-loop science. The role oversees operations at substantial scale, including collections numbering in the millions, automated stores measured in millions of tubes, millions of assay-ready wells dispensed annually, and international distribution to partners across dozens of countries. For candidates based at Stevenage, the role will temporarily be based there. GSK plans to relocate its offices to Cambridge, UK, with this role’s location expected to change to Cambridge according to timelines set by the company. The relocation is currently proposed to take effect by early 2029.

Requirements

Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD in life or physical science, engineering, computer science, informatics, or data science, or equivalent experience.
Extensive leadership experience in sample management, compound or biologics logistics, or laboratory operations at scale in a biopharmaceutical or comparable scientific environment.
Demonstrated ownership of a digital product or laboratory informatics capability, such as inventory, registration, or LIMS, with personal accountability for roadmap, adoption, and data quality.
Experience leading leaders across multiple sites and countries and building teams that combine operational, engineering, and digital expertise.
Working understanding of data standards, data models, and integration patterns, including APIs, events, and FAIR principles.
Experience delivering capital programmes end to end, including business case, procurement, FAT/SAT, validation, and handover.
Working knowledge of controlled and restricted materials, chain of custody, material transfer agreements, and international shipping and export requirements.
Credible experience across both the physical and digital sides of sample management.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience with high-capacity automated sample stores, acoustic dispensing, and sample inventory systems.
Familiarity with laboratory orchestration and scheduling platforms, closed-loop experimentation, and agentic AI workflows.
Product management practice, including roadmaps, backlogs, user research, and measuring adoption and value.
Experience with computerized system validation and data integrity principles (ALCOA+).
Experience with demand forecasting, depletion prediction, inventory analytics, or predictive operations.
Experience leading an operation through a site relocation or consolidation.
Track record of promoting, motivating, and empowering others to accomplish individual, team, and organizational goals.

Responsibilities

Define and deliver a global physical and digital sample management strategy and roadmap across modalities and sites, aligned with LIAL and priority technology programmes and supported by clear outcome measures.
Lead the US and UK Sample Management leads and the function’s digital and platform capabilities as one global, service-oriented team; build a workforce combining sample science, automation engineering, informatics, and data expertise.
Serve as accountable business and product owner for the Sample Management digital estate, including registration, inventory, requests and fulfilment, real-time tracking, and analytics.
Own the cross-modality sample data model and determine the system of record for sample identity and lineage to establish a single source of truth.
Deliver API- and event-driven sample services for requests, reservations, preparation, delivery, and returns, enabling scientists, automated laboratories, and authorized AI agents to support closed-loop experimentation.
Run high-throughput, modality-agnostic operations and global cold-chain logistics, measuring cycle time, reliability, availability, and traceability; capture sample integrity information, including storage history, time out of storage, freeze–thaw cycles, and QC results.
Manage external sample networks, including offsite archives, CROs, collaborators, and future external execution partners, with digital manifests, identifier mapping, data return, and service levels.
Lead Sample Management’s role in major site transitions and capital programmes, including the multi-year UK relocation and readiness of new facilities, from business case through installation, validation, and handover.
Ensure safe, compliant, inspection-ready operations covering controlled and restricted materials, chain of custody, material transfer agreements, IATA and export requirements, data integrity, OT security, and business continuity for irreplaceable collections.