Associate Director - Operational Excellence

JOB TITLE : Associate Director - Operational Excellence 

CAREER LEVEL: F

Leverage technology to impact patients and ultimately save lives

Do you have expertise in, and passion for, information technology? Would you like to apply your expertise to impact the IT strategy in a company that follows the science and turns ideas into life changing medicines? If so, AstraZeneca might be the one for you!

ABOUT ASTRAZENECA

AstraZeneca is a global, science-led, patient-focused biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialisation of prescription medicines for some of the world’s most serious disease. But we’re more than one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. At AstraZeneca we’re dedicated to being a Great Place to Work.

ABOUT OUR IT TEAM

It’s a dynamic and results-oriented environment to work in – but that’s why we like it. There are countless opportunities to learn and grow, whether that’s exploring new technologies in hackathons, or redefining the roles and work of colleagues, forever. Shape your own path, with support all the way. Diverse minds that work cross- functionally and broadly together.

ABOUT THE ROLE

This role will be responsible functionally for providing support to the Director, operational excellence for Enterprise Capability Solutions (ECS). The scope includes a range of areas associated, most notably, for improving the efficiency, effectiveness and quality of the function. You will lead and run operational excellence initiatives, drive continuous improvement of the function, and ensuring alignment and integration across all levels and domains. This role will also support the orchestration and completion of key processes to be completed for AZ-IT, e.g., tier process, annual planning, IT strategy alignment and identifying/deploying ongoing business agility opportunities and ensure these are embedded into the ECS organisation.

The role will work closely with Director, Operational Excellence and with the rest of the Leadership team to drive consistency, governance and delivery to time, quality for pan AZ IT initiatives and processes.

The role holder will be expected to use initiative and a self-driven approach, with the opportunity to identify and suggest continuous improvement opportunities.

Work with the Director of operational excellence, to deliver and embed our global AZ IT strategic initiatives, operating model, and ways of working spanning:

Governance, Strategy & Performance

• Support understanding, agreement and adoption of pan AZ IT OKRs and KPIs within the function ; facilitate agreement of performance OKRs and KPIs and associated governance and tracking processes to align with AZ IT performance processes/governance

• Use analytics to identify continuous improvement opportunities and undertake selective cross and in-industry benchmarking to support continuous improvement and strategic thought leadership

Portfolio

• Ensure AZ IT portfolio governance, standards and processes are understood and adopted across the function

• Work with the leadership team and Global Strategy &Performance to provide consolidated visibility of the function portfolio - identifying optimisation opportunities

• Identify opportunities for re-use, share, speed, de-duplicate, simplify

• Support consistency of delivery approaches and methods

• Track portfolio delivery and governance for continuous improvement opportunities

Education, Qualifications, and Experience

Essential

• Bachelors degree required, MBA or advanced degree preferred in Information Technology, Business Administration, or related field

• 5+ years’ experience in business and performance management ideally in a mixed in/ outsourced IT environment/consulting

• 3+ years’ experience in a pharmaceutical or biotech environment preferred

• 3+ years’ experience leading cross functional teams and building consensus

• Experience with insights generation and demonstrated understanding of new and emerging business intelligence tools

Desirable

• Six Sigma certification

• Knowledge of industry qualifications and standards

Skills and Capabilities

Essential

• Understanding of portfolio management concepts

• Ability to work with cross-functional global teams and multiple leadership layers to develop critical business outcomes

• Effective analytical skills to identify opportunities for performance improvement and enhanced business/ways of working agility – including within portfolio and performance working

• Knowledge of transformation delivery approaches and methods, including Agile and waterfall and the relative pros and cons when using those and other methods

• Good understanding of deploying OKRs/KPIs metrics for enhanced business performance and utilising benchmarking for effective target setting

• Effective strategic thinking and problem-solving skills

• Good understanding of budgeting and finance concepts and processes

Desirable

• Performance management approaches and application

WHY JOIN US?

We’re a network of high-reaching self-starters who contribute to something far bigger. We enable AstraZeneca to perform at its peak by delivering premier technology and data solutions.

We’re not afraid to take ownership and run with it. Empowered with unrivalled freedom. Put simply, it’s because we make a significant impact. Everything we do matters.

SO, WHAT’S NEXT?

Are you already envisioning yourself joining our team? Good, because we’d love to hear from you! Click the link to apply and we’ll be in touch as soon as we can.

WHERE CAN I FIND OUT MORE?

Our Social Media, Follow AstraZeneca on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/1603/

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.