GCS Content & Omnichannel Director, Web and SEO/GEO Excellence

AstraZeneca is a global, science‑led, patient‑focused biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, and commercializes prescription medicines for some of the world’s most serious diseases. We work in a fast‑paced, agile environment powered by technology and digital innovation, united by a shared purpose to deliver life‑changing medicines. 

Global Business Services Commercial Services Overview  

GBS Commercial Services provides services — Content & Omnichannel, Commercial Reporting and Analytics, Global Meetings & Events, Launch and MLR Planning and more — that enable global and market teams to deliver and manage customer engagement activities efficiently at scale. Within GCS Commercial Services, the Content & Omnichannel (C&O) organization drives how content, web experiences, and campaigns are planned, created, approved, and orchestrated globally. We work with business teams in all major regions and markets – US, EUCAN, International (LATAM, MEA, Asia Area, ANZ) and Japan. 

Role Summary  

The C&O Director Web and SEO/GEO Excellence shapes and drives the global operations agenda for Web and SEO/GEO service delivery at AstraZeneca. This is a dual remit that spans 1) the development, management and implementation of excellence standards for our active Web Delivery and SEO services and 2) the reinvention of these two services through workflow redesign to harness AI tools and agentic capabilities. 

In this role, you will collaborate closely with counterparts in AstraZeneca’s Enterprise AI Unit (EAI) and Commercial IT (IT) organisations as part of a cross-functional team that shapes, enables and executes web strategy, capability development, website assembly, website updates, search engine and AI optimisation across 40+ markets in US, EUCAN, International and Japan. In this role, you will make a significant contribution to accelerating how our scientific, medical and promotional information reaches audiences across the world, supporting the adoption of our innovative medicines across some of the most prevalent and serious diseases and transforming patient outcomes. 

The successful candidate will lead two teams of Channel Excellence Leads for Web and SEO, respectively, a total of 9 direct reports distributed across the US East Coast, Canada, and Portugal. Your teams will partner with business customers and delivery colleagues to ensure services are effective across diverse market contexts, regulatory environments, and levels of digital maturity. You will also contribute to how these services are delivered, helping to shape scalable delivery models that balance centralised execution, pod-based delivery, and increased market self-sufficiency. 

You will combine deep knowledge of leading edge web technologies (Adobe Experience Manager ecosystem knowledge preferred), web excellence standards, Search Engine Optimisation, Generative Engine Optimisation and a track record of web delivery leadership in large global organisations (pharmaceutical industry preferred) either as an in-house leader or in digital agencies and other relevant 3rd party providers. You have an ambitious, adaptable, resilient and pragmatic mindset with curiosity to stay up to date on the latest developments in the domains of Web, SEO, GEO and AI and confidence to challenge the status quo. You are comfortable with organisational and process complexity, ambiguity and build trusted working relationships with leaders, peers and team members across organisational boundaries. As a credible subject matter expert, you communicate clearly and are able to collaborate and influence without authority, driving sustainable improvements in our capabilities in the Web and SEO/GEO domains in a constructive fashion. 

Core Responsibilities 

Strategy, Roadmap and Excellence Standards  

• Operationalise Future Web and GEO/SEO Vision and Drive the Roadmap: Partner with our EAI and IT teams  to define and implement a scalable enterprise strategy and roadmap to enable our brands to achieve and maintain high visibility, competitiveness in priority topic areas, factual accuracy across search engines (Google, AI overviews, AI mode) and LLM-driven generative engines (e.g. ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, OpenEvidence). 

• Elevate Machine Readability Standards: Lead the operationalization of scalable frameworks (metadata, schema markup, tagging) to ensure that web content that we publish is easily discoverable, accurately cited, and compliant when surfaced by generative AI models. 

• Elevate Web Excellence Standards: Refine, advocate and govern the global delivery standards for user experience (UX), site speed, accessibility for websites delivered and managed on our enterprise web platform. 

• Impact Measurement: Work with EAI and IT to define and implement an integrated framework to track Web, SEO, and GEO KPIs, providing visibility on ROI and tying digital performance back to broader omnichannel commercial goals. 

• Elevate Service Performance Outcomes: Partner with GCS delivery teams to continuously improve service performance (across speed, cost, quality), using data and frontline insights to prioritise optimisation and ensure consistently high levels of delivery excellence. 

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Governance 

• Partner with EAI and IT to Influence Enterprise Direction: Collaborate deeply with EAI and IT to evaluate, pilot, and integrate new web and search technologies into our existing tech stack. Act as a strategic partner bringing a clear point of view on business services requirements and helping shape platform and capability development priorities. 

• Ensure Stakeholder Alignment: Drive stage-gate reviews and steering committees, effectively communicating technical progress, risks, and resource requirements to senior leadership and informing strategic decisions related to progressing the roadmap. 

• Engage with Regulatory & Compliance (MLR): Work with Medical, Legal, and Regulatory teams to ensure all SEO/GEO strategies and web delivery activities adhere to global data privacy laws (GDPR, HIPAA) and local biopharma promotional guidelines. 

Service Design & Operating Model 

• Shape new Web and SEO/GEO Services: Work with EAI, IT and our Web and SEO/GEO service squads to translate capabilities into clearly defined value propositions and service offerings relevant to business needs. 

• Reinvent Web and SEO Processes: Identify new business requirements, bottlenecks, pain points in web delivery, search and AI optimisation workflows; reinvent processes with the introduction of selected tools and AI capabilities. Define clear ownership across strategy, execution, and optimisation activities, ensuring efficient collaboration and coordination across GCS, EAI and IT teams. 

• Design Service Delivery Models: Shape how Web and SEO/GEO services are delivered across markets, balancing centralised execution, pod-based delivery, and increased market self-sufficiency.  

Global Enablement & Change Management 

• Global-to-Local Adoption: Drive adoption of web, search, and AI-enabled capabilities across 40+ markets, tailoring approaches to varying levels of digital maturity and regulatory requirements. 

• Capability Building: Contribute to upskilling initiatives for global content creators, local brand teams, and external agency partners on SEO and GEO best practices and the evolving nature of HCP and patient information discovery needs, preferences and behaviours. 

• Embed New Ways of Working: Ensure new service offerings, workflows, and tools are consistently adopted within pods and markets, working closely with delivery teams to bridge the gap between design and execution. 

Minimum Qualifications, Experience and Competencies 

• Experience: 10+ years of experience in digital marketing operations, web strategy, or SEO, with 3-5 years in a global leadership role within biopharmaceutical, healthcare, or highly regulated industries as an in-house leader or in an agency or 3rd party context. 

• Subject Matter Expertise: Deep technical understanding of enterprise Web CMS platforms, traditional SEO architecture, and the emerging mechanics of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) applications. 

• Influence without Authority: Proven track record of successfully driving global digital transformation initiatives across complex global matrix organizations. 

• Regulatory Acumen: Exposure to regulated or highly governed environments and familiarity with Medical Legal Regulatory review processes, data privacy, and quality controls. 

• People Leadership: Proven experience in shaping and leading high-performing teams of specialist Web and SEO professionals. 

• Strategic Pragmatism: Ability to balance bleeding-edge AI innovation with rigorous compliance processes. 

• Executive Presence: Exceptional communication skills, capable of translating complex technical Web/SEO/GEO/AI concepts into business value narratives for senior commercial stakeholders. 

• Change Agent: High emotional intelligence and refined diplomacy skills to navigate organizational complexity, manage resistance to change, build consensus, and drive adoption among diverse global and regional teams and stakeholders. 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Experience with business service design, specifically within marketing operations and omnichannel content supply chains. 

• Working knowledge of global biopharma Medical Legal Regulatory review processes and data privacy compliance. 

• Experience coordinating internal teams with external agencies, system integrators, and offshore hubs. 

Work Model and Travel 

• Hybrid/remote options per location policy; some global time‑zone coordination required; travel up to 20% as needed.