Senior Director, Head Launch Excellence

Amgen•Chicago, IL

7d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Director, Head Launch Excellence is a strategic and operationally experienced serial launch leader in Amgen's Global Marketing organization, bringing pattern recognition from multiple biopharmaceutical launches to shape and run Launch Excellence (LEX) as a practical global launch operating capability. This role partners across Global, Regional and Affiliate teams to establish an enterprise LEX capability as part of the Global with Local (GwL) model. The LEX lead will define hands-on, guided and self-service support levels, identify critical-path risks early and build the Launch Excellence capability in the Amgen India Capability Center (AIN), including AI-enabled automation for repeatable launch activities.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree preferred.
Extensive biopharmaceutical commercial experience, ideally 22 - 26 years across global, regional and local marketing and commercial roles.
Demonstrated serial launch track record: personally led, shaped or played a senior cross-functional role in multiple product launches across brands, markets and launch archetypes.
Direct experience leading launch excellence, launch readiness, launch operations or multi-market execution, including integrated launch plans, critical-path milestones, risk mitigation and launch governance.
Proven people management experience, including building teams, setting operating models and coaching talent in complex matrix environments.
Demonstrated ability to engage senior stakeholders, influence across functions and communicate clearly with executive audiences.
Strong project management, organizational and analytical skills, with comfort using dashboards, KPIs and risk-based decision-making.
Experience with digital tools, dashboards, AI-enabled workflows or automation in commercial operations, launch readiness or launch execution preferred.

Nice To Haves

Serial launch leadership: Proven pattern recognition from multiple biopharmaceutical launches, with the ability to pressure-test plans, anticipate risks and know what good readiness looks like across launch types and markets.
Global and local marketing expertise: Deep experience across global brand strategy, regional translation and local execution, ideally across launch, in-line and lifecycle brands.
People leadership: Demonstrated success hiring, leading and developing teams, ideally including offshore or capability-center teams.
Strategic and operational judgment: Ability to connect brand strategy, launch sequencing, market needs, governance, milestones and execution into a practical operating model.
Stakeholder influence: Strong credibility with senior leaders and ability to align Global, Regional and Market stakeholders without relying on formal authority.
Pragmatic innovation mindset: Ability to apply AI, automation, dashboards and knowledge management to improve speed, quality and reuse.

Responsibilities

Define and operationalize the LEX operating model, including launch-clock scope, global-to-local handoffs, governance, decision rights, service levels and escalation paths.
Set quality standards for launch readiness planning, milestone preparation, LRRs, leadership touchpoints, risk and decision logs and launch performance, using serial launch judgment to pressure-test plans.
Partner with Global teams, ABM, regions and affiliates to translate launch strategy into high-quality launch preparation, integrated launch plans and practical market activation support.
Partner with Marketing and ABM teams to identify and close launch-specific guidance and process gaps.
Implement clear rules for hands-on, guided and self-service LEX support based on brand priority, market relevance, launch complexity, critical-path risk and escalation triggers.
Hire, onboard and manage the AIN Launch Excellence team, setting role clarity, intake processes, service menus, quality expectations and ways of working with Global, Regional and Market teams.
Build and maintain practical LEX assets such as launch dashboards, LRR tools, quality checks, GM checklists, self-assessments, KPI dictionary, playbooks and AI-enabled workflows.
Establish launch readiness routines, readiness heatmaps, KPI definitions, risk triggers, decision records and escalation mechanisms that give senior leaders clear visibility into launch readiness and trade-offs.
Develop onboarding, learning modules, communities of practice, reusable launch cases, after-action reviews and post-launch retrospectives so learnings scale across brands and markets.
Establish global launch forums to share lessons learned, and best practices across brands, accelerating cross-brand learning for teams working toward similar launch timelines.
Build trusted relationships with global, regional and local leaders, ensuring LEX improves launch quality and focus without becoming a substitute for brand strategy ownership or local accountability.