Director, Customer Engagement & Transformation Portfolio

Director, Customer Engagement & Transformation Portfolio

Location: Gaithersburg, US (Hybrid)

Function: MESO – Customer Engagement & Transformation

Reports to: Head of Global Medical Affairs, Customer Engagement & Transformation

 

About the Role

The Director, Customer Engagement & Transformation Portfolio will provide strategic portfolio leadership, operational governance, and disciplined delivery across the Customer Engagement & Transformation portfolio. The role will help translate strategic priorities into integrated plans, coordinate delivery across functions and geographies, and ensure that key initiatives progress with clarity, accountability, and measurable impact.

Working across Global Medical Affairs, Medical Excellence Strategy & Operations, Digital, Data, Communications, Finance, and other enabling functions, the Director will connect strategy with execution and strengthen the organization’s ability to deliver consistently at scale.

The role will oversee portfolio planning, project and program governance, budget and resource management, change enablement, leadership-team effectiveness, and continuous improvement. It will also support the implementation of medical standards and compliant ways of working across relevant functional activities and global-to-local interfaces.

The successful candidate will be able to operate effectively in a complex, multicultural, and highly matrixed environment; influence senior stakeholders and diverse teams without relying solely on formal authority; and provide decisive, pragmatic leadership in a changing and sometimes ambiguous environment.

The Director will operate as a strategic partner to the function head and leadership team, progressing priority strategies from ideation through implementation and strengthening global-to-local interfaces for effective execution.

This role will also contribute to the development of scalable operating practices, stronger cross-functional collaboration, and more consistent ways of working across Customer Engagement & Transformation.

 

Key Accountabilities

1. Strategic Portfolio Partnership

Partner with the Head of Customer Engagement & Transformation, functional and initiative leads, and relevant Strategy, Operations & Innovation leaders to translate strategic priorities into objectives, roadmaps, integrated delivery plans, milestones, and measurable outcomes.

Provide project-management expertise and operational insight to support the development and execution of Customer Engagement & Transformation strategy.

Maintain an integrated view of initiatives, interdependencies, resource requirements, risks, expected benefits, and strategic contribution to support prioritization and leadership decision-making.

Lead or support the development of annual and longer-term operating plans, functional roadmaps, strategic priorities, and portfolio scorecards, ensuring alignment with broader organizational priorities.

Maintain an integrated view of key initiatives, dependencies, resource requirements, risks, and expected benefits.

Own structured prioritization across the business-planning cycle, including forecasting, phasing, trade-off decisions, and alignment to medium- and long-range plans.

Bring a broad global business perspective and support effective translation of global strategy into regional and local execution.

 

2. Cross-Functional and Matrix Team Leadership

Lead and coordinate cross-functional initiatives, ensuring that workstreams are aligned and integrated plans are delivered effectively.

Establish a collaborative and accountable project environment across teams, functions, and geographic locations.

Build strong, trusted working relationships with senior stakeholders, initiative owners, project managers, workstream leads, and delivery teams across multiple time zones.

Facilitate effective communication, escalation, and decision-making processes across the portfolio.

Support the effective operation of governance forums, including leadership meetings, steering groups, and cross-functional councils.

Help onboard new team members to consistent project-management practices across the function.

Where assigned, lead and develop project-management colleagues or contingent resources, building trust, providing mentorship, clarifying expectations, and creating a high-performing team environment.

Adapt leadership style to the situation, generate commitment, balance short- and long-term needs, and resolve differences constructively.

3. Planning, Monitoring, and Delivery

Facilitate planning, forecasting, phasing, and prioritization across relevant business-planning cycles, including RBU, MTP, and Long-Range Plan processes, where applicable.

Coordinate portfolio-level budget planning, spend tracking, purchase-order management, vendor coordination, and financial reporting, where applicable.

Support contract planning, purchase-order management, vendor coordination, external partner oversight, and appropriate financial and operational governance.

Develop and maintain integrated project plans, roadmaps, milestone trackers, and delivery dashboards.

Define and monitor deliverables, timelines, budgets, resource requirements, dependencies, and performance measures.

Track progress against strategic goals and provide consolidated reporting for Customer Engagement & Transformation leadership.

Identify delivery risks, issues, and barriers early, coordinating appropriate mitigation and escalation.

Monitor project health and provide clear recommendations when plans, resources, or priorities require adjustment.

Ensure that project documentation, decisions, actions, and follow-ups are maintained in accordance with agreed governance standards.

Ensure that project outcomes and benefits are captured, measured, and communicated.

Maintain a transparent view of resource capacity and workforce needs across the functional group, escalating constraints and recommending practical options.

4. Governance, Communications, and Information Management

Develop and maintain fit-for-purpose governance structures, ways of working, decision rights, templates, reporting standards, and escalation processes.

Lead effective, agenda-driven leadership meetings, steering groups, councils, and cross-functional forums.

Provide strategic input into meeting agendas and ensure that discussions focus on priorities, decisions, risks, dependencies, and actions.

Coordinate the collection and consolidation of updates from initiative and workstream leads.

Maintain clear records of decisions, actions, risks, owners, due dates, and follow-up commitments to monitor progression across the portfolio.

Prepare leadership-ready presentations, pre-reads, walking decks, status reports, scorecards, roadmaps, communications, and decision materials for senior leadership.

Partner with Customer Engagement & Transformation and Medical Excellence leaders to prepare communications on key initiatives, strategic priorities, operating changes, and portfolio performance.

Support consistent communication across the Customer Engagement & Transformation community through appropriate channels and materials.

Promote effective use of collaboration and information-management platforms, including SharePoint, Teams, and other approved tools.

Help ensure that project information is accessible, current, and managed in line with AstraZeneca standards and applicable governance requirements.

5. Change Management and Adoption Enablement

Develop and coordinate change-management plans for new capabilities, processes, operating models, customer-engagement approaches, and ways of working.

Coordinate stakeholder engagement, communications, training, and adoption activities in partnership with relevant teams.

Anticipate resistance, capability gaps, process challenges, and other barriers to implementation, and develop practical mitigation plans. Track adoption, engagement, and business-impact measures following implementation.

Capture lessons learned and promote reuse of effective practices across initiatives.

Ensure that changes are embedded into operating practices and that lessons learned are captured and applied across future initiatives.

6. Entrepreneurship and Continuous Improvement

Identify opportunities to simplify, standardize, and improve processes across Customer Engagement & Transformation and Medical Excellence. Collaborate with other project and portfolio leaders to embed best practices, reusable tools, and effective delivery approaches.

Challenge ineffective processes and help remove barriers within and across teams while maintaining appropriate governance and compliance.

Champion company and function best practices while adapting them to the needs of Customer Engagement & Transformation.

Use business knowledge and practical problem-solving to drive cross-functional and cross-project learning.

Explore opportunities to simplify work, improve transparency, and enable more scalable ways of operating.

Lead or contribute to selected strategic transformation workstreams as required.

Demonstrate an entrepreneurial, externally oriented, forward-looking mindset and act decisively when navigating ambiguity or rapidly changing priorities.

Key Deliverables

The role will be accountable for delivering or enabling:

• An integrated Customer Engagement & Transformation portfolio plan, roadmap, and prioritization framework.
• Regular portfolio reporting, including progress against milestones, strategic goals, dependencies, budgets, risks, issues, decisions, and benefits.
• Effective project and governance routines across key initiatives and workstreams.
• Leadership-ready status reports, dashboards, scorecards, roadmaps, walking decks, presentations, communications, and decision materials.
• Consistent tracking of project deliverables, actions, decisions, budgets, contracts, and resource requirements.
• Coordinated input into annual and longer-term planning, forecasting, workforce planning, budget cycles, RBU, MTP, and Long-Range Plan processes, as applicable.
• Clear tracking of resources, workforce requirements, budgets, contracts, purchase orders, vendors, and financial commitments.
• Clear escalation and mitigation plans for delivery risks, barriers, competing priorities, and dependencies.
• Effective coordination of cross-functional meetings, steering groups, councils, and workstream forums.
• Standardized project-management tools, templates, and ways of working.
• Stakeholder-engagement and adoption plans for priority initiatives.
• Documented lessons learned, reusable practices, and continuous improvement opportunities.
• Delivery of up to two strategic Customer Engagement & Transformation workstreams, or an equivalent portfolio of high-priority initiatives, as required.

 

Essential Skills and Experience

• Minimum of seven years of relevant experience in the pharmaceutical industry, healthcare, life sciences, or a closely related regulated environment.
• Minimum of three years of Medical Affairs experience at global, regional, or local level, or equivalent experience working directly with Medical Affairs teams and priorities.
• Significant experience in project management, portfolio management, business transformation, operations, or program delivery, ideally within a large and matrixed organization.
• Demonstrated experience leading complex, cross-functional initiatives from planning through implementation and benefit realization.
• Comprehensive understanding of pharmaceutical product development and commercialization, and of the global business context in which Medical Affairs and customer engagement operate.
• Strong ability to translate strategic priorities into practical delivery plans, milestones, governance, and measurable outcomes.
• Experience managing interdependencies, risks, issues, budgets, resources, and competing priorities.
• Successful experience influencing cross-functionally, cross-culturally, and across brands, including bringing together teams without direct line-management authority.
• Experience working in a global setting and managing stakeholders across different geographies and time zones.
• Strong stakeholder-management and influencing skills, including the ability to work effectively with senior leaders and diverse functional teams.
• Experience preparing and/or delivering presentations, recommendations, and communications to executive leadership.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to synthesize complex information into clear updates, recommendations, and decision materials.
• Experience establishing project-management routines, dashboards, reporting processes, and governance forums.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail, with the ability to oversee multiple deliverables in short timelines and deliver high-quality work despite ambiguity or change.
• Demonstrated change-management capability spanning process implementation, communications, training, adoption, people development, and organizational effectiveness.
• Strong interpersonal and leadership capability, including strategic thinking, practical problem solving, independent judgment, decisiveness, and the ability to resolve differences constructively.

 

Desirable Skills and Experience

• Graduate-level degree in science, business, or a related discipline.
• Experience in pharmaceutical, healthcare, or life sciences.
• Familiarity with Global Medical Affairs, customer engagement, medical operations, scientific engagement, or digital transformation.
• Experience working with enterprise transformation portfolios or operating-model changes.
• Exposure to customer-engagement platforms, digital capabilities, data and analytics, automation, or AI-enabled productivity tools.
• Experience with financial planning, budget tracking, vendor management, purchase orders, or grant-management processes.
• Proficiency with project-management, collaboration, reporting, and information-management tools such as Microsoft Project, Power BI, SharePoint, Teams, or equivalent platforms.
• Formal project- or program-management certification, such as PMP, PRINCE2, Agile, or equivalent, is desirable.
• Consulting experience is an asset.
• Understanding of the medical, scientific, and/or commercial pharmaceutical marketplace; therapeutic-area experience, including oncology, is an asset.

Why This Role Matters

Customer Engagement & Transformation is helping shape how AstraZeneca engages with customers, delivers value, and operates across a changing healthcare environment. The Director, Customer Engagement & Transformation Portfolio will provide the structure, connectivity, and delivery discipline needed to turn strategic ambition into measurable progress.

By strengthening portfolio visibility, enabling effective cross-functional collaboration, and embedding scalable project-management practices, this role will help teams focus on the highest-value priorities and deliver transformation with greater speed, consistency, and impact.

 

Our Culture and Your Impact

At AstraZeneca, we believe the future of medicine depends on courageous innovation, collaboration, and relentless curiosity. In this role, you will have the opportunity to connect people and priorities, bring clarity to complexity, and help create practical new ways of working across Customer Engagement & Transformation.

You will contribute by building trusted partnerships, enabling teams to deliver at their best, and helping translate ambitious ideas into outcomes that improve how we work and the value we create for patients and customers.

The annual base pay for this position ranges from $149,805.60 - $224,708.40 USD. Hourly and salaried non-exempt employees will also be paid overtime pay when working qualifying overtime hours. Base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. In addition, our positions offer a short-term incentive bonus opportunity; eligibility to participate in our equity-based long-term incentive program (salaried roles), to receive a retirement contribution (hourly roles), and commission payment eligibility (sales roles). Benefits offered included a qualified retirement program [401(k) plan]; paid vacation and holidays; paid leaves; and, health benefits including medical, prescription drug, dental, and vision coverage in accordance with the terms and conditions of the applicable plans. Additional details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment. If hired, employee will be in an “at-will position” and the Company reserves the right to modify base pay (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, Company or individual department/team performance, and market factors. 

Date Posted

01-Oct-2026

Closing Date

07-Oct-2026

Our mission is to build an inclusive environment where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants and employees. In furtherance of that mission, we welcome and consider applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of their protected characteristics. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please complete the corresponding section in the application form.