AstraZeneca

Global HR Business Partner- Alexion R&D

AstraZeneca • $121K — $182K *
Pharmaceuticals & Biotech
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree required.
  • 8+ years of progressive HR experience, particularly in workforce and talent management.
  • Strong business acumen with an understanding of R&D strategy and workforce implications.
  • Proven expertise in strategic workforce planning and organizational effectiveness.
  • Fluency in AI and digital technologies, with a focus on workforce transformation.
  • Ability to leverage workforce data and analytics for decision-making.
  • Strong consulting and problem-solving skills, with experience in complex change management.

Responsibilities

  • Serve as a strategic advisor to R&D leaders, aligning people strategies with business priorities.
  • Lead strategic workforce planning, including demand analysis and capability assessments.
  • Evaluate the impact of AI and automation on roles and skills within the organization.
  • Develop talent strategies using various approaches to meet workforce needs.
  • Advance skills-based talent practices, including succession planning and internal mobility.
  • Collaborate with leaders on organization design and operational effectiveness.
  • Utilize workforce analytics to inform decisions and measure the impact of HR strategies.

Benefits

  • Hybrid work model with an average of three days in the office.
  • Eligibility for short-term incentive bonuses and equity-based awards.
  • Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage.
  • Qualified retirement programs and paid time off, including vacation and holidays.
Full Job Description

Global HR Business Partner- Alexion R&D

Boston, MA

Alexion HR

Hybrid Work- on average 3 days a week from office

Reporting to the Head of RDU HR, Global R&D, the HRBP serves as a strategic talent and workforce advisor to R&D leaders. The role translates business and scientific priorities into workforce, talent, organization, and culture strategies, with a particular focus on how AI, automation, and new ways of working are reshaping roles, skills, and workforce needs. 

Working across Alexion and AstraZeneca, the HRBP combines strong business acumen, workforce insight, and practical HR expertise to anticipate talent risks, strengthen organizational capability, and enable leaders and teams to perform through change. 


What you'll do


  • Serving as a trusted strategic advisor to R&D leaders, translating business, portfolio, and scientific priorities into integrated people and organization strategies. 
  • Leading strategic workforce planning, including demand and supply analysis, scenario planning, critical-role identification, and assessment of workforce risks and capability gaps. 
  • Assessing how AI, automation, and emerging technologies will change work, role design, team structures, and the skills required to deliver future business priorities. 
  • Developing talent and capability strategies that use build, buy, borrow, redeploy, and automate approaches to address current and future workforce needs. 
  • Advancing skills-based talent practices, including skills mapping, capability assessment, succession planning, internal mobility, reskilling, and upskilling. 
  • Partnering with leaders on organization design and operating model effectiveness to clarify accountabilities, decision rights, interfaces, and the most effective balance of human and technology-enabled work. 
  • Using workforce analytics, talent intelligence, and business insights to identify trends, test assumptions, inform decisions, and measure the impact of people strategies. 
  • Leading the people and change agenda for business, digital, and AI-enabled transformation, including stakeholder alignment, leadership readiness, adoption, and sustained behavior change. 
  • Providing coaching and challenge to leaders on leadership effectiveness, team performance, talent decisions, culture, inclusion, engagement, and employee experience. 
  • Driving integrated talent planning across acquisition, development, performance, succession, retention, and deployment, with particular attention to critical and emerging capabilities. 
  • Partnering across AstraZeneca HR, including Talent Acquisition, Talent and Development, Total Rewards, Employee Relations, Inclusion and Diversity, People Services, and other Centers of Expertise, to deliver joined-up solutions. 
  • Providing sound guidance on complex people matters while balancing employee needs, business priorities, risk, consistency, and organizational values. 
  • Ensuring high-quality execution of core HR processes, data, and systems, while continuously improving how HR work is delivered and using digital and AI tools responsibly to increase insight, speed, and impact. 

Essential for the role


  • Bachelor's degree
  • 8+ years of progressive HR experience, including experience partnering with leaders on workforce, talent, organization, and change priorities.
  • Strong business acumen and the ability to understand R&D strategy, scientific priorities, operating models, and the workforce implications of business decisions. 
  • Demonstrated capability in strategic workforce planning, talent strategy, organization design, and organizational effectiveness. 
  • AI and digital fluency, with the ability to help leaders understand how technology is changing work and to translate those changes into practical workforce and skills strategies. 
  • Ability to use workforce data, analytics, and external insights to frame issues, develop scenarios, and influence evidence-based decisions. 
  • Strong consulting, problem-solving, and facilitation skills, including the ability to challenge constructively and navigate ambiguity. 
  • Experience leading complex change and transformation across a global, highly matrixed organization. 
  • Strong leadership coaching, stakeholder management, and collaboration skills across business leaders and HR partners. 
  • High learning agility and the ability to manage multiple, changing priorities with sound judgment. 
  • A high level of ethics, integrity, confidentiality, accountability, and commitment to responsible use of data and AI. 

Desirable for the role


  • Experience supporting R&D, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, life sciences, or another complex knowledge-based environment. 
  • Experience with strategic workforce planning, skills-based talent approaches, workforce analytics, or AI-enabled business transformation. 
  • Experience working effectively across global and highly matrixed organizations. 
  • Advanced degree and/or relevant professional certification 

Office Working Requirements


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.
 

The annual base pay for this position ranges from $121,836.00 - 182,754.00 USD. Our positions offer eligibility for various incentives—an opportunity to receive short-term incentive bonuses, equity-based awards for salaried roles and commissions for sales roles. Benefits offered include qualified retirement programs, paid time off (i.e., vacation, holiday, and leaves), as well as health, dental, and vision coverage in accordance with the terms of the applicable plans. ​


#LI-Hybrid 

Date Posted

05-Oct-2026

Closing Date

18-Oct-2026

About AstraZeneca

AstraZeneca is a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical company that specializes in the research, development, and manufacturing of prescription drugs. The company was formed in 1999 through the merger of Astra AB and Zeneca Group plc. AstraZeneca's products are used to treat a wide range of medical conditions, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and diabetes. The company has operations in over 100 countries and employs more than 76,000 people worldwide. AstraZeneca is committed to developing innovative medicines that improve the health and well-being of people around the world.
Learn more about AstraZeneca
Size
83,100 employees
Market Cap
$211.5 billion
Industry
Net Income
$3.1 billion
Founded
1999
5 Year Trend
+10.2%
Revenue
$26.6 billion
NASDAQ

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