Senior R&D Project Manager

Ceva Santé Animale • Philadelphia, PA

3d

About The Position

Ceva Animal Health is seeking a Senior R&D Project Manager to lead selected Discovery, New Product Development, or Life Cycle Management projects toward proof of concept, market authorization, and commercialization. The role combines rigorous project management, cross-functional leadership, and scientific and product-development expertise. The manager is accountable for project delivery across time, cost, quality, and business impact, while developing the project team, adapting to changes in scope and portfolio, and connecting project decisions to Ceva’s strategic, competitive, and customer context.

The role includes making decisions within defined authority thresholds and escalating matters to governance bodies with clear recommendations and trade-offs when those thresholds are exceeded. The manager champions the product’s strategic value, communicates project status and decisions, leads and develops cross-functional teams, and promotes continuous improvement. They own project plans, risks, budgets, forecasts, documentation, resource management, and reporting, using corporate project-management tools and digital and AI-enabled tools where appropriate.

The Senior R&D Project Manager also contributes scientific expertise to challenge technical rationale and interpret study data, maintains awareness of internal and external scientific advances, develops an external expert network, and applies end-to-end product-development knowledge. They anticipate regulatory, quality, manufacturing, commercial, and intellectual-property or market dependencies, and ensure compliance and ethical standards throughout development.

Requirements

• Advanced scientific degree in life sciences, veterinary sciences, or a related field; a Master’s degree with substantial equivalent scientific expertise may be considered.
• Genuine scientific or technical expertise relevant to the project domain, such as disease knowledge, microbiology, immunology, or CMC, evidenced by an advanced degree, publications, patents, or a recognized R&D expert track record.
• Proven project-management track record applying standard project-management tools and methodologies rigorously, including agile and waterfall approaches.
• Business acumen.
• Experience presenting to governance bodies and making and owning autonomous decisions within defined thresholds.
• Comfort using digital and AI-enabled project-management tools and data-driven reporting.
• Knowledge of GMP, GLP, and GCP and the regulatory framework for biological or pharmaceutical products.

Nice To Haves

• PhD or post-doctoral experience is strongly preferred.
• PMP, PMI, or equivalent project-management certification is preferred.
• Experience with Smartsheet is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Lead selected R&D projects, including Discovery, New Product Development, and Life Cycle Management projects, toward proof of concept, market authorization, and commercialization.
• Take accountability for delivery across time, cost, quality, and business impact.
• Make project decisions within defined authority thresholds and escalate beyond-threshold decisions to governance bodies with proposed solutions and trade-offs.
• Connect product and project decisions to Ceva’s strategic, competitive, customer, product-range, and portfolio context.
• Anticipate business impact and maintain alignment with market needs and business objectives throughout the project lifecycle.
• Communicate project status and recommended trade-offs clearly and adapt communication and leadership style to the audience.
• Build, lead, and develop cross-functional project teams; delegate ownership of workstreams and support team members’ growth.
• Participate in objective setting and assessment of project team members.
• Promote continuous improvement, adaptability, change, and a test-and-learn mindset; translate learnings into reusable standards.
• Structure and maintain project plans, including scope, work breakdown structure, sequencing, critical path, timeline, scorecard, and KPIs, in the corporate project-management tool.
• Proactively manage project risks, opportunities, issues, and changes; anticipate deviations and propose corrective actions and trade-offs.
• Use digital and AI-enabled tools to improve forecasting, planning, and reporting and reduce manual effort.
• Track budgets and forecasts, manage variances against the business case, and integrate financial and operational trade-offs into project decisions.
• Own project documentation and updates, resource management, timeline estimation, and reporting.
• Apply scientific expertise to independently challenge technical rationale and interpret study data.
• Conduct regular scientific monitoring of internal and external advances and maintain an external network of expertise in the relevant scientific area.
• Apply end-to-end product-development knowledge to anticipate cross-functional dependencies and propose solutions with associated probabilities of success.
• Integrate regulatory, quality, intellectual-property, and market considerations into project planning, risk anticipation, and prioritization.
• Ensure compliance and ethical standards throughout the development lifecycle.

What This Job Offers

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