Associate Director, Speaker Program Solutions

At AstraZeneca, we’re not afraid to do things differently. We’re resetting expectations of what a bio-pharmaceutical company can be. This means we’re opening up new ways to work, innovative and groundbreaking methods and bringing unexpected teams together.

The Associate Director, Speaker Programs Solutions is a strategic partner to customer facing leaders across the enterprise to ensure that necessary business processes are established and supported with technology to enable brand teams to meet their strategic goals and priorities.  The role is a key player within the Strategic Field Operations function essential for supporting current platforms (Veeva) and technology solutions (ViewPoint) across Sales, Marketing, US Medical and US Market Access to enable promotional speaker program delivery.  This individual must work across multiple functions (US IBEX, IT, Sales, Commercial Channels, Brands, Compliance) to balance the immediate demands with future capabilities needed to deliver the US BBU Business strategy.  This individual will play a significant role in shaping and deploying ongoing evolutions in the AZ’s Speaker Program capability, especially with respect to enhancements in our cross channel capabilities.  In exchange for a fast-paced environment, this role offers significant opportunities for leadership exposure and professional development.  

Main Duties and Responsibilities

The SPS Leader will be responsible for supporting core business priorities of optimizing speaker program channel solutions to maximize overall impact and enhance program delivery. This role will focus on proactive anticipation of future market needs and partnership with brand teams, sales teams and several third parties to support compliant promotional plans to address these needs.The SPS Associate Director will provide subject matter expertise and develop SOPs to guide cross functional teams with best practices.  The position will maximize SPS capabilities for the core therapeutic area(s) and be accountable for the full adoption of SPS Center of Excellence activities including:

• Lead strong stakeholder relationship management and foster innovative thinking related to the compliant delivery of speaker programs to accelerate delivery and drive process efficiencies

• Proactively develop best practice approaches across all phases of the SPS life cycle including establishing and maintaining standard operating procedures and key performance indicators for programs

• Business owner level support for field event management functionality within CRM

• Therapeutic area budget planning, forecast measurement and reporting to ensure annual speaker program strategic plans are translated effectively into implementation

• Collaborate with the SPS team and our strategic partners (both internal and external) to shape our holistic approach to promotional program planning, execution and measurement

• Process and activity management for the build and maintenance of brand speaker bureau(s) for the brand

Essential requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree required

• Sales or marketing experience preferred

• 5+ years of professional business experience 

• Experience with vendor and budget management

• Demonstrated organizational skills planning, developing, implementing and measuring business plans

• Experience working in collaborative cross functional team settings

• Strategic thinker with analytical skills

• Demonstrated ability to influence without authority