Sr. Director, Brand Product Strategy

McKesson•Alpharetta, GA

6d•Hybrid

About The Position

This Sr. Director, Brand Product Strategy serves as a senior individual contributor within the North America Pharmaceutical Distribution Strategy function, supporting the Brand Sourcing & Manufacturer Relations (BSMR) segment. The BSMR segment is responsible for the strategic, financial and operational aspects of our distribution relationships with manufacturers of branded pharmaceuticals across the Full Line Wholesale (FLW) and Specialty Distribution (SD) channels. Reporting to the VP, Product Strategy & Strategic Initiatives, this position operates as a key strategic partner to segment leadership. The Senior Director is responsible for owning and leading defined workstreams and strategic sub-areas within the segment, shaping insights, framing decisions, and driving forward progress in close partnership with business and functional leaders. This is a highly hands-on role that requires strong judgment in stakeholder engagement and a commitment to developing strategy collaboratively—not in isolation. Success in this role is defined by the ability to translate complex dynamics into actionable decisions, build credibility with partners, and ensure strategic work leads to practical, executable outcomes.

Requirements

10+ years of progressive experience in strategy, including engagement-leadership experience at a top-tier strategy consulting firm or equivalent leadership experience in pharmaceutical strategy or market access.
Demonstrated ability to build working fluency in policy and complex value chain economics quickly.
Track record of leading cross-functional strategic projects end-to-end that resulted in concrete decisions and measurable action — not just analysis delivered to others.
Demonstrated ability to lead and develop small analytical teams.
Executive presence and demonstrated effectiveness presenting to and influencing senior leaders.
Problem Framer: Structures problems soundly using core problem-solving disciplines; translates ambiguity into hypotheses, workplans, and decision paths; embraces qualitative, people, and relationship-based problem solving alongside the quantitative.
Value Chain Fluency: Possesses working knowledge of pharmaceutical value chain economics — distribution margin structures, sourcing dynamics, PBM and payer economics, and pharmacy P&Ls — and applies it as a core analytical lens, not background knowledge.
Recommendation Craft: Synthesizes complete sets of implications into well-syndicated recommendations framed as genuine choices with explicit trade-offs; controls quality and process across the initiative.
Constructive Challenger: Challenges stakeholder and team assumptions constructively; brings new insights; is developing the trust-based relationships that make challenge welcome rather than resisted.
People Developer: Coaches team members in a strengths-based way, solicits feedback, and creates the conditions for high performance and team health.
Communication: Prepares well-structured documents with minimal guidance; presents well to audiences of all sizes; fosters constructive dialogue and balances asking with telling.

Nice To Haves

Experience in healthcare and /or pharmaceutical services; Experience in pharmaceutical distribution buy-side and / or market access / trade strategy preferred.
Experience with pharmaceutical market analysis tools such as IQVIA, Evaluate preferred.

Responsibilities

Lead strategic initiatives end-to-end — from problem definition and workplan design through analysis, recommendation development, syndication, and hand-off to execution owners.
Structure ambiguous, contested problems into clear hypotheses, workplans, and decision paths; insist on clear problem definition, logic, and evidence.
Develop recommendations that reflect genuine choices with explicit trade-offs — not lists of initiatives — and that are grounded in the financial architecture of the relevant market.
Prepare and run productive problem-solving sessions with business partners; engage stakeholders in joint problem solving rather than delivering conclusions to them.
Serve as a knowledgeable resource on the financial architecture of the pharmaceutical value chain — how manufacturers, distributors, PBMs, payers, and pharmacies generate and protect economic value, and how those mechanisms are being repriced.
Assess manufacturer go-to-market and commercialization needs, including launch strategy, market access strategy and new capabilities required to support new product launches.
Direct and quality-control the financial models built by the team; ensure every significant analysis identifies the assumptions that matter most and translates market shifts into quantified P&L implications.
Analyze the value chain second-order financial and competitive consequences of legislative and regulatory developments — drug pricing reform, PBM transparency, reimbursement policy — within the scope of assigned initiatives.
Contribute to scenario analysis of vertical integration, direct channel development, and disintermediation moves by value chain participants.
Act as a credible thought partner to business leaders within the scope of assigned initiatives; challenge assumptions constructively and surface inconvenient facts early.
Understand the organization’s culture and individual stakeholder perspectives, and consider them in crafting recommendations that the business can actually execute.
Develop thoughtful plans to engage stakeholders through the process — from fact-finding to solution development — to build alignment as the work proceeds, not after it concludes.
Deliver compelling written and oral communications to senior business audiences; lead with key messages, present persuasively and with conviction, and tailor materials to the audience.
Ask powerful, open-ended questions; actively listen and respond to nuance and mood in senior settings.
Partner with and direct teams of one to three Senior Managers and analysts per initiative; scope work realistically against team capacity and deliver high-quality output without undue crunch.
Coach team members in a strengths-based way; provide insightful, timely feedback; shape step-up opportunities that stretch colleagues.
Contribute to a positive, inclusive team climate and to function-building efforts including recruiting and knowledge development.
Translate approved recommendations into implementation roadmaps with clear owners, milestones, and metrics; support transformation programs through their early execution phases.
Create feedback loops that surface early execution signals back into the strategic logic.