Head, Oncology Alliance Management

Role Summary

Takeda is seeking a highly accomplished, enterprise-minded leader to serve as Senior Director, Head of Oncology Alliance Management. This role is accountable for shaping and leading the global alliance management strategy for the Oncology Therapeutic Area, ensuring Takeda maximizes the strategic, scientific, operational, and financial value of its most critical partnerships across the discovery, development, and commercialization continuum.

Key Responsibilities

• Oversee a complex portfolio of research, clinical development and commercial partnerships led by a team of therapeutically aligned Alliance Managers and directly manage business-critical activities for the Oncology Therapeutic Area.
• Directly manage a limited number of partnerships, determined by complexity and strategic value to the Therapeutic Area.
• Provide strategic leadership for the Alliance Management team to:
• Maximize the value of partnered programs by successfully operationalizing alliances and ensuring the vision, goals and strategic intent of partnerships are jointly created and executed.
• Embed operational effectiveness across all components of the alliance, establishing measurable performance metrics, mitigating risk and facilitating speed of execution.
• Proactively report on upcoming decision points and contractual milestones.
• Clearly define and share the communication plan and alliance critical processes.
• Lead joint project and governance teams; develop risk mitigation plans; and negotiate contractual amendments in partnership with Business Development as needed.
• Ensure the team is implementing Takeda’s partnership strategy in alignment with alliance management best practices across the company.
• Build and maintain key relationships across a broad sphere of influence, both internally and externally, to achieve the strategic intent of partnerships, manage conflict and ensure mutually beneficial outcomes.
• Leverage relationships with key stakeholders (team members, functional leads, external alliance counterparts, etc.) to ensure alignment and accountability for functional, program and organizational objectives.
• Actively engage with cross-functional stakeholders to influence and operationalize new deals, balancing risks and opportunities, and establish and implement effective governance structures, strategies, and processes which maximize the potential value and operational success of pending/newly executed collaborations.
• Coordinate team efforts for providing impactful presentations which succinctly summarize status updates, key risks, complex discussion points and recommendations to facilitate strategic planning and decision-making by senior leadership.
• As part of the Alliance Management community at Takeda, collaborate with other Alliance Management leaders to shape the strategy and to elevate alliance management capabilities by developing R&D-wide standards for excellence in partnering and facilitating improvement by developing or enhancing internal tools, systems, processes and training materials.
• Drive and embed a strong culture of continuous improvement, ensuring that key takeaways are shared across R&D and applied to subsequent alliances.
• This role has people management responsibilities and involves onboarding and training of new alliance managers, along with ongoing development and mentoring.

Qualifications

• In-depth understanding of the drug discovery, development and commercialization process and working knowledge of cross-functional areas and deliverables.
• Proven leadership skills in managing matrixed global teams, influencing outcomes and project decisions, and strategic problem-solving ability.
• Strong business acumen required, and the ability to work effectively amidst ambiguity and organizational complexity.
• Ability to effectively drive decision-making within cross-functional and cross-cultural global teams, motivating others, influencing senior leaders/stakeholders internally and externally and managing conflict.
• Strong written and oral communication skills as well as demonstrated organizational aptitude.
• Highly collaborative and excellent interpersonal skills with the ability and presence to provide guidance and mentorship across all levels of the organization.
• Ability to effectively represent Takeda and partner interests to maximize partnership value.

Education and Experience

• BS/BA required; advanced degree (e.g. MBA) and/or advanced life sciences degree (MD, PhD, PharmD) preferred.
• Professional certification in alliance management (CA-AM) is desirable.
• Minimum of 10+ years of experience as an alliance manager leading global pharmaceutical development programs in the biotech/pharmaceutical industry with an in-depth understanding of drug discovery and development processes and demonstrated track record of successfully managing enterprise-level discovery research, preclinical and clinical development alliance programs.
• Minimum of 5 years of direct people management experience and/or proven leadership experience in managing global matrix teams with solid experience in influencing across the organization and leading change management with or without direct authority.
• Strong direct-line management experience managing a high-performing global team.
• Prior experience managing or working within cross-functional project teams with timeline management and budgetary responsibility.