Band
Level 7
Job Description Summary
The ED, National External Expert Engagement & COE will own and evolve the U.S. External Expert Engagement ecosystem through a hybrid HQ based and field enabled operating model, serving as the Center of Excellence (COE) for External Expert engagement strategy, standards, governance, insight generation, and intelligence driven execution. This role shifts the center of gravity from field led execution and individual relationship ownership to enterprise stewardship, ensuring External Expert engagement is coherent, scalable, compliant, and insight driven across therapeutic areas. The Executive Director sets the strategy, operating model, and intelligence engine that transforms External Expert interactions into repeatable enterprise leverage, systematically informing commercial, medical, and educational decision making. This role leads a hybrid organization comprised of HQ based National External Expert Engagement roles and field based TLL (Thought Leader Liaison) teams, providing enterprise leadership, orchestration, and alignment across both HQ and field enabled engagement models, with explicit prioritization, role clarity, and capacity management.
This position can be based remotely anywhere in the U.S. (there may be some restrictions based on legal entity). Please note that this role would not provide relocation as a result. The expectation of working hours and travel (domestic and/or international) will be defined by the hiring manager. Travel is selective and leverage based (e.g., priority congresses, high impact External Expert engagements, and critical enterprise transitions). This role is not designed for broad geographic field coverage.
Job Description
Key Responsibilities:
Leadership, People Management and Development:
- Define and evolve the enterprise External Expert Engagement strategy and operating model (HQ and field), aligned to portfolio needs and enterprise resource constraints.
- Establish national standards for External Expert segmentation, prioritization, and engagement models as well as clarify what the HQ‑based engagement model can and cannot do, preventing attempts to recreate legacy field coverage through centralized roles.
- Build a proactive talent strategy for the hybrid External Expert Engagement organization, including capability building (strategic, analytic, and influence skills), succession/bench planning for critical roles, and scalable career development pathways across HQ and field-enabled teams.
Advocacy Development:
- Ensure enterprise‑level stewardship of priority External Expert relationships, emphasizing quality, continuity, and strategic relevance rather than broad geographic coverage. Shift focus from individual advocacy generation to insight quality, influence, and enterprise decision support.
Insight Gathering:
- Own the full External Expert insight lifecycle: capture → synthesis → prioritization → activation. Ensure insights systematically inform brand and TA strategy, HCP education planning, congress strategy, lifecycle planning, and launch readiness. Establish repeatable mechanisms for enterprise insight dissemination to Marketing Strategy leaders and cross‑functional stakeholders.
Center of Excellence (COE) Leadership:
- Serve as Head of Center of Excellence for External Expert Engagement and establish enterprise standards, playbooks, governance, and training frameworks to enable consistent and scalable engagement across therapeutic areas.
- Drive enterprise transformation, scaling, and continuous improvement of operating models, reducing coordination burden and increasing strategic focus.
AI, Data & Advanced Analytics Enablement:
- Partner with Data, AI, and Commercial Excellence teams to deploy AI‑enabled approaches that improve expert segmentation, signal detection, insight synthesis, and knowledge management.
- Identify opportunities to automate or streamline lower‑value coordination and reporting work, particularly within HQ‑based roles.
Conventions and Congresses:
- Ensure cohesive External Expert engagement planning for national and regional congresses, including pre‑ and post‑congress engagement, insight capture, and executive readouts.
Essential Requirements:
- Bachelor’s degree in related field
- At least 5 years of experience in TLL, Account Management or related experience as well as a minimum 10 years’ experience in team or people leadership
- Advanced command and knowledge of health care and/or pharmaceutical industry with proven experience building and leading enterprise Centers of Excellence and/or scalable operating models across multiple therapeutic areas.
- Demonstrated enterprise strategy ownership, including multi-horizon roadmap development and operating model transformation in a regulated environment.
- Track record of influencing senior stakeholders and leading through a complex matrix to drive alignment, decisions, and execution across HQ and field teams.
- Demonstrated ability to lead hybrid or distributed organizations, including governance, decision rights, and capacity management across centralized and field-enabled models.
- Strong change leadership using agile, test-and-learn approaches to navigate ambiguity, accelerate adoption, and continuously improve ways of working.
- Proven ability to identify opportunities and translate innovation into scale (identify/source/pilot/evaluate/implement), including partnership with Data/AI and external vendors as needed.
- AI and analytics literacy (ability to interpret and apply outputs; not technical development) and comfort with data-driven performance management and insight activation.
- Exceptional executive communication skills with a consistent track record of delivering fact-based, decision-ready narratives and recommendations to diverse stakeholder groups.
- Demonstrated talent development leadership, including capability building programs, succession/bench planning, and scalable career pathways for HQ and field-enabled teams.
- Strong systems thinking, strategic judgment, and ability to make tradeoffs under constraint while maintaining enterprise-wide coherence and compliance.
Desirable Requirements:
Novartis Compensation Summary:
The salary for this position is expected to range between $236,600 and $439,400 per year.
The final salary offered is determined based on factors like, but not limited to, relevant skills and experience, and upon joining Novartis will be reviewed periodically. Novartis may change the published salary range based on company and market factors.
Your compensation will include a performance-based cash incentive and, depending on the level of the role, eligibility to be considered for annual equity awards.
US-based eligible employees will receive a comprehensive benefits package that includes health, life and disability benefits, a 401(k) with company contribution and match, and a variety of other benefits. In addition, employees are eligible for a generous time off package including vacation, personal days, holidays and other leaves.
Salary Range
$236,600.00 - $439,400.00
Skills Desired
Agility (Inactive), Asset Management, Business Strategies, Commercial Excellence, Cross-Functional Collaboration, Customer-Oriented, Digital Marketing, Healthcare Sector Understanding (Inactive), Influencing Skills, Inspirational Leadership, Marketing Strategies, Medical Affairs, People Management, Priority Disease Areas Expertise (Inactive), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Product Marketing, Product Positioning, Product Strategies, Revenue Growth, Stakeholder Engagement, Stakeholder Management, Strategic Alliances, Value Propositions
