Senior Director, Talent Development & Employee Engagement

Real Chemistry • Chicago, MA

2d • $160,000 - $180,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

At Real Chemistry, making the world a healthier place isn’t just an aspiration—it’s our everyday reality. Our drive to transform healthcare is informed by our blend of deep scientific expertise, human-centred creativity, and AI-driven insights, fostering a unique environment where innovation thrives and our people are impact-obsessed. As a global agency, we provide a full suite of services across healthcare communications and marketing to our clients, including top players in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Our #LifeatRealChem culture is rooted in our people—we believe we are best together and are committed to excellence for both our clients and colleagues. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting your career, if you share our passion for healthcare and connection, we invite you to explore our opportunities. Discover your purpose. Embrace innovation. Experience #LifeatRealChem. Senior Director, Talent Development & Employee Engagement Role Overview The Senior Director, Talent Development & Employee Engagement will play a critical leadership role in shaping how Real Chemistry develops, engages, and empowers its people to deliver on our mission to use AI and ideas to transform healthcare. This leader will lead and develop a high-performing team that will design and scale enterprise-wide strategies across L earning & Development, Employee Engagement, & DE&I ensuring Real Chemistry continues to evolve as a high-performing, inclusive, and future-ready organization. This role will partner closely with senior People Leaders & technology teams to translate strategy into impactful programs that strengthen leadership capability, drive engagement and belonging, and accelerate adoption of AI across the enterprise. This is a hybrid role, based in any of our US offices—including New York City, Boston, Chicago, Carmel, or San Francisco—or remotely within the US, depending on team and business needs.

Requirements

• 10+ years of progressive experience in, learning & development, talent development, organizational effectiveness or related People leadership roles, preferably within an agency setting, healthcare, or complex matrixed organizations.
• Proven experience designing and scaling enterprise-wide learning and engagement strategies with measurable business impact.
• Demonstrated expertise partnering with senior leaders to drive organizational change and capability building.
• Strong understanding of DE&I principles and experience embedding inclusive practices into leadership development and organizational systems.
• Hands-on experience supporting fast-moving change/transformation
• Exceptional communication, facilitation, and stakeholder influence skills, with the ability to operate effectively at executive levels.

Responsibilities

• Learning & Development Strategy: Own and evolve Real Chemistry’s enterprise organizational effectiveness strategy, aligning learning, & engagement to business priorities and long-term growth.
• Design and oversee a modern learning ecosystem that supports leadership development, manager effectiveness, career progression, including AI and critical capability building across the organization.
• Partner with People, business, and functional leaders to identify skill gaps and future capabilities, translating needs into scalable, high-impact learning solutions.
• Establish operating models, and success metrics for learning, engagement, and organizational effectiveness initiatives to ensure consistency, scalability, and measurable impact across a global, matrixed organization.
• Employee Engagement & Culture: Lead the design and execution of employee engagement strategies that strengthen connection, performance, and retention across a global, hybrid workforce.
• Use data and insights (e.g., engagement surveys, feedback mechanisms) to identify trends, inform action plans, and measure impact over time.
• Champion a culture of continuous growth, accountability, and psychological safety consistent with Real Chemistry’s values.
• AI Transformation & Enablement AI-Enabled Talent Transformation: Lead the integration of AI and emerging technologies into learning and development strategies to enhance skill-building, personalization, scalability, and workforce readiness across the organization.
• Future Skills & Change Enablement: Partner with business and People leaders to define AI-related capability needs, design upskilling and change programs, and help leaders and employees effectively adopt new AI-driven ways of working.
• Ensure learning strategies support not only AI adoption, but sustained behavior change and productivity gains from AI-enabled work.
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Partner with leadership to embed equity, inclusion, and belonging into learning, leadership development, talent practices, and organizational processes.
• Support inclusive leadership development and cultural fluency initiatives that enable leaders and teams to operate effectively in a diverse, global environment.
• Ensure DE&I principles are integrated into program design, measurement, and outcomes.

Benefits

• Real Chemistry offers a comprehensive benefit program and perks, tailored to your region.
• Globally, this includes offices in our key markets with free snacks to keep you running all day long, generous holiday and paid time off, options for private medical, dental, and vison plans, and support in saving for the future.
• Other perks include mental wellness coaching and support and access to more than 13,000 online classes with LinkedIn Learning.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed