Associate Director, IT & Business Enablement

About the role

The Associate Director, IT & Business Enablement will serve as the strategic and operational IT leader for Dispatch Bio — a high-impact, highly visible role at a company on the cusp of clinical-stage milestones. This is not a traditional IT manager role in that we are looking for a leader who brings equal parts IT operational knowledge and strategic vision: someone who can hold our managed service provider (MSP) accountable to SLAs and quality standards, while simultaneously shaping a forward-looking applications and data strategy that scales with the company.

In this role, you will partner with scientific, clinical, and operational leaders to build a cost-effective, compliant, and future-ready technology foundation — one that empowers our scientists with self-service access to computational resources, positions us well for regulatory scrutiny, and ensures AI is embedded thoughtfully into how we work. Travel up to 20% of the time.

Key responsibilities

• IT Operations
• Serve as the primary internal point of contact for our IT MSP to ensure service quality, accountability, prioritization and continuous improvement.
• Manage relationships with IT vendors and third-party service providers, conducting regular business reviews and driving continuous improvement.
• Develop and manage short- and long-term IT budgets, optimizing spend across MSP services, SaaS applications, cloud infrastructure, and security tools.
• Ensure consistent IT service delivery across our Philadelphia and San Francisco offices.
• Applications Strategy & Business Process Enablement
• Own and maintain a company-wide applications roadmap, balancing near-term needs with a scalable, cost-effective architecture that can grow with the company through clinical development and beyond.
• Partner with functional leaders to gather business requirements and identify the right technology solutions.
• Lead the evaluation, selection, and deployment of enterprise applications, ensuring thoughtful change management and user adoption.
• Data Governance & Security
• Full accountability for architecting and sustaining the organization’s cybersecurity framework to ensure total operational resilience.
• Design and govern data architecture, storage, access controls, and lifecycle management appropriate for a clinical-stage biotech operating under GxP requirements.
• Partner with research leads to understand evolving computational needs and proactively plan capacity and tooling.
• Develop and enforce IT policies and procedures that reflect both regulatory requirements and practical operational realities.
• Ensure systems are audit-ready and that documentation supports regulatory submissions and inspections.
• AI Strategy & Adoption
• Assess and recommend AI-enabled tools and platforms appropriate for a regulated biotech environment, ensuring proper governance and data handling.
• Work with functional leaders to identify high-value AI use cases and support responsible adoption and enhance business processes, scientific workflows, and organizational productivity.
• Evaluate how AI tools integrate with our existing tech stack and guide the build-out of an AI-compatible data and application architecture.

Required experience & skills

• Bachelor’s degree
• Minimum of 8 years of IT experience, with at least 3-5 years in a biotechnology or pharmaceutical environment, ideally at the clinical stage
• Demonstrated experience managing or overseeing MSPs and third-party IT vendors, including SLA accountability and vendor governance
• Strong knowledge of business applications strategy, including evaluating, deploying, and managing enterprise software (HRIS, ERP, LIMS, quality systems, collaboration tools, etc.)
• Hands-on experience enabling cloud computing environments (AWS and/or Azure) for scientific or technical users, with an emphasis on self-service models and cost governance
• Solid understanding of data governance, data privacy, and information security in a regulated biotech or pharma context
• Familiarity with GCP and GxP requirements applicable to electronic systems and data management
• Working knowledge of AI tools and platforms and how they can be integrated into enterprise business processes; comfort with the evolving AI landscape
• Proven ability to operate as both a strategic thinker and a hands-on operator in a lean, fast-moving environment
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills; ability to translate technical concepts for non-technical audiences
• Strong project management and organizational skills; ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously
• Ability to travel up to 20% of the time

Preferred experience & skills

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field
• Experience building or scaling IT capabilities at a company transitioning from research-stage to clinical-stage
• Familiarity with systems supporting clinical trials and regulated workflows (eTMF, CTMS, eQMS, etc.)
• Hands-on involvement with enterprise AI strategy, tool selection, and deployment in a regulated environment
• ITIL certification and/or CISSP or equivalent security credential