Director, R&D IT Operational ExcellenceMississauga, Ontario ITHybrid Work- on average 3 days/week from officeThe Director, R&D IT Operational Excellence is a senior leadership role responsible for driving governance, operational performance, workforce strategy, financial stewardship, organizational effectiveness, and change adoption across R&D IT.
As a member of the Operational Excellence organization, this role partners with Capability, Portfolio, Finance, HR, Strategy, and Quality leaders to ensure disciplined execution of strategic priorities, effective decision-making, transparent performance management, and alignment to enterprise objectives.
The role serves as the operational leader for assigned R&D IT capability portfolios, overseeing governance, planning, workforce and capacity management, performance reporting, financial oversight, and continuous improvement. The Director connects strategy to execution by establishing scalable, data-driven operating models that improve organizational effectiveness and support AstraZeneca's digital, data, and AI ambitions.
What you'll do Operational Excellence & Governance- Lead operational excellence activities across assigned R&D IT capability portfolios, ensuring alignment to organizational objectives and enterprise governance standards.
- Partner with senior leaders to identify and assess operational inefficiencies, prioritize, drive process standardization and optimization, automation, and AI-enabled improvements that increase organizational effectiveness, consistency, scalability, and employee productivity.
- Partner with R&D IT Operations Leads to facilitate process standardization across functional areas, fostering a collaborative, one-team approach.
- Drive operational discipline through governance reviews, compliance monitoring, risk management, and corrective action planning. Provide regular reporting against targets, broken down by functional area, and partner with stakeholders to course-correct where needed.
- Lead operational cadences including but not limited to conducting business reviews, governance forums, operational reviews, and planning activities, including defining agenda and recapping decisions and meeting minutes.
- Build strong partnerships across Finance, HR, SP&Q, Operational Excellence, Enterprise Functions, and broader R&D organizations.
- Influence stakeholders across a complex, matrix environment to achieve organizational objectives and drive sustainable outcomes.
Performance Management & Executive Reporting - Own development and maintenance of business, R&D and capability scorecards, frameworks, and executive performance reporting. Provide narrative and speaking-note support for senior stakeholders, including presentation materials for executive-level review and quarterly performance storytelling.
- Establish, review and maintain operational health indicators & dashboards, KPIs, OKRs, and executive reporting mechanisms.
- Translate complex operational, financial, workforce, portfolio, and AI adoption data into concise, actionable insights for senior leadership.
- Establish & leverage existing reporting frameworks that improve organizational visibility, accountability, and decision-making.
- Supports annual and multi-year planning activities including Mid-Term Planning (MTP), Long-Term Planning (LTP), business planning cycles, strategic roadmaps, and investment prioritization.
Workforce Strategy, Capacity & Resource Management - Support workforce planning activities across assigned portfolios, ensuring workforce capacity aligns with strategic priorities and delivery objectives.
- Oversee organizational headcount governance, including permanent employees and Outside Service Providers (OSPs).
- Monitor workforce utilization, organizational capacity, AI and digital skill demand trends, and future capability requirements to proactively identify workforce risks and opportunities.
- Lead workforce readiness initiatives focused on AI literacy, digital capability development, and adoption of emerging technologies across R&D IT
- Support long-term sustainability goals, including but not limited to reducing our carbon footprint.
Financial Stewardship & Business Operations - Support capability leaders and business partners in business case development, investment planning, value realization assessments, and funding prioritization decisions.
- Lead operational oversight of budget performance against plan, financial governance processes, investment tracking, resource-related expenditures, and recommend corrective actions where necessary.
- Ensure compliance with AstraZeneca financial policies, governance standards, and planning requirements.
Essential for the role- Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Technology, Life Sciences, Engineering, or related discipline.
- 5-7 years+ experience in operational excellence governance, business operations, organizational effectiveness roles, financial management, and performance reporting
- R&D Clinical experience
- Experience in senior stakeholder management and developing executive-level dashboards, KPIs, scorecards, and operational reporting,
- Experience measuring business outcomes and organizational value derived from digital, automation, and AI investments.
- Experience leading cross-functional continuous improvement and organizational transformation initiatives.
- Strong analytical and data-driven decision-making skills.
- Excellent written, verbal, facilitation, and executive communication skills.
Desirable for the role- Experience supporting Digital, Data, AI, Technology, R&D, or Product organizations.
- Pharmaceutical, biotechnology, healthcare, or regulated industry experience.
- Experience with strategic planning cycles, investment governance, and business case development.
- Knowledge of Lean, Operational Excellence, Continuous Improvement, Agile, or equivalent methodologies.
- Understanding of GDPR and data privacy
- Understanding of SDTM delivery
- Experience with workforce planning, supplier governance, and outsourced service provider management.
- Experience leading AI adoption, Generative AI initiatives, Copilot deployments, intelligent automation programs, or workforce AI transformation efforts.
- Experience leveraging ServiceNow, Power BI, Jira, AirFocus.
- Experience with employee engagement or survey programs.
- Familiarity with technology adoption and enablement programs in large, matrix organizations.
- A can-do attitude and eagerness to build experience across employee engagement, learning & development, and the broader business of R&D.
- Confidence in building relationships across the business and constructively challenging behaviors.
- Independence and ability to lead a small, cross-functional team.
