Associate Director, RDU IT - Data Capability Enabling Units

Some opportunities happen only once in a lifetime - like a job where you have the chance to change lives. At Alexion, people living with rare and devastating diseases are our Guiding Star. We are driven to continuously innovate and create important value in all we do to help patients and families fully live their best lives. We value the uniqueness and diversity of our employees and recognize that championing the diverse perspectives and strengths of our people translate into innovative breakthroughs for patients.

Introduction to role:

As the DI&A Capability Lead for Enabling Units, you will collaborate with the Head of IT Data, Insights & Analytics and play a pivotal role in the Alexion IT RDU organization. Your main focus will be to adopt a stakeholder-centric, data-driven approach to deliver large Data & AI Programs across various Enabling Units functions such as Finance, Compliance, Sourcing, Quality, HR, and Legal. 

We are seeking a sharp-minded, aggressive, and energetic DI&A leader responsible for establishing strategies, functional plans, and delivering products/projects/programs to meet the organization's short- and long-term goals. You should be adept at architecting and designing data and analytics solutions to meet specific business demands, driving value from information, and ensuring end-to-end delivery.

We need adaptable candidates with a broad set of technology skills to lead robust data solutions demonstrating disparate datasets, data lake repositories, engineering workflows, visualization, and Data Science toolkits. You will oversee global demands and work with internal and vendor delivery organizations to ensure the right delivery approach/model is followed.

The ideal candidate should prioritize meeting client needs. They should be able to independently develop advanced data foundations, business analytics, data engineering, and integration solutions. Additionally, they should possess good social skills to effectively convey solutions to various IT and business groups. A consistent record in Enabling Units functions for an international Pharma/Biopharma company is crucial. Superior program delivery and team management capabilities, deep technical skills, and the ability to handle vendor relationships are crucial. Alexion RDU aims to build the next generation of patient-centric digital health products, and we seek a qualified individual passionate about applying healthcare data and platforms to drive business innovation.

Accountabilities

- Understand business needs, conceptualize analysis frameworks, define DI&A requirements, and coordinate implementation with business partners, IT Digital teams, and external partners to deliver improved digital experiences to collaborators.
- Drive initiatives in Data Management, deploy DI&A enablement practices for master, reference, and metadata, and implement key strategies in building taxonomy/ontologies and FAIR data products using multi-modal datasets.
- Deliver data engineering services by ingesting data into the Alexion Data Platform, crafting data hubs to integrate and distribute data as products, and supporting integration into digital applications to generate insights through AI/ML.
- Drive operationalization and adoption of data products and AI/ML solutions to generate insights supporting Enabling Units functions.
- Provide consultancy advice as a trusted partner to both global and regional collaborators within the business and other technology teams from strategic partners/vendors for ongoing and new implementation projects ensuring alignment with organizational goals.

Essential Skills/Experience

- Bachelor's Degree
- Minimum 6+ years of experience

- Deep technical delivery management experience in Data Engineering, Data Foundation and Observability, and AI/ML across functions and geographies.
- In-depth working knowledge of data domain modeling and expertise in designing taxonomy and ontology that facilitate the management of key master/reference data products like G/L, Cost Center, Healthcare Professional/Organization, Vendor, Product, and their associated hierarchies.
- Coordinate data at the macro level using conceptual/logical data models as a standard for the trusted source and for consuming applications to inherit, with the ability to extend the data model to bridge internal Alexion and AstraZeneca data.
- Ability to optimally direct a team of Business Analysts, Data Engineers, Analytics, and AI Developers through all phases of the development life cycles including concept definition, product design, development, implementation, and testing.
- Experience in leading, crafting, and developing data lake and data integration architectures using FAIR datasets with prior experience handling end-to-end engagements in BI using Qlik Sense and Data Science languages like R and Python; knowledge of Cloud platforms like AWS suite, modern data storage layers like Snowflake, dbt, FiveTran, and cloud data management applications like Immuta, Collibra, and Reltio/Veeva Network.
- Knowledge of Privacy and healthcare interoperability standards like GDPR, HIPAA, HL7, FHIR.
- Familiarity with Git, Data-Ops, Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment pipelines, and experience in Agile project execution.

Desirable Skills/Experience

- A Master’s degree, MBA, or equivalent level or experience
- 8+ years of digital and data transformation experience within the biopharma industry with at least 3 years leading complex transformations.
- Prior experience working on digital health initiatives.

When we put unexpected teams in the same room, we unleash bold thinking with the power to inspire life-changing medicines. In-person working gives us the platform we need to connect, work at pace and challenge perceptions. That's why we work on average a minimum of three days per week from the office. But that doesn't mean we're not flexible. We balance the expectation of being in the office while respecting individual flexibility. Join us in our unique and ambitious world.

AstraZeneca is at the forefront of transforming healthcare through digital innovation. By uniting our technologies with our collective expertise, we drive our transformational journey forward. This allows us to better interpret data and make informed decisions that positively impact patients worldwide. Our dynamic environment encourages continuous learning and development while encouraging collaboration across complementary teams.

Ready to make a difference? Apply now to join our team!

AstraZeneca embraces diversity and equality of opportunity. We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team representing all backgrounds, with as wide a range of perspectives as possible, and harnessing industry-leading skills. We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be. We welcome and consider applications to join our team from all qualified candidates, regardless of their characteristics. We comply with all applicable laws and regulations on non-discrimination in employment (and recruitment), as well as work authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements.