Director, R&D IT Operational Excellence, Change Management & Communication

Director, R&D IT Operational Excellence, Change Management & Communication  

Gaitherburg, MD

IT

Hybrid Work- on average 3 days/week from office

The Director, R&D IT Operational Excellence, Change Management & Communication 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. 

You'll serve as the operational leader for assigned R&D IT capability portfolios, supervising 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. 

In addition, this role leads enterprise-wide change management, communications, employee engagement, and AI enablement initiatives that accelerate technology adoption, strengthen organizational capability, and enhance the employee experience across R&D IT. 

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 one-team approach.  

• Drive operational rigor 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. 

• Supervise organizational headcount governance, including permanent employees and Outside Service Providers (OSPs). 

• Track 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

• Ensure compliance with AstraZeneca financial policies, governance standards, and planning requirements. 

Change Management & Communications: 

• Develop and implement the Change and Communications Events Plan, including R&D-facing engagement events. 

• Design and lead a forward-looking learning and technology adoption strategy, including ownership of recurring learning sessions and acceleration events, in partnership with learning & development teams. 

• Own communications related to technology upskilling and employee relations matters, ensuring clear, timely messaging across channels. 

• Lead a flagship feedback program designed to monitor and improve the stakeholder experience in real time. 

Essential for the role

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Technology, Life Sciences, Engineering, or related field

• 5-7+ years experience in IT 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. 
   

• Experience leading AI adoption, Generative AI initiatives, Copilot deployments, intelligent automation programs, or workforce AI transformation efforts. 

• 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 using 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.