Job Description

General Summary:

The Director, Strategic Operations and Portfolio Review is part of the Data and Computational Sciences (DCS) department, which leads the data science and computational science efforts for all of Global Research at Vertex. As a member of the Data and Computational Sciences Leadership Team, you will influence the strategic direction for DCS, including the evaluation of potential scientific opportunities and investment areas, to drive business value for Vertex through the discovery and development of novel medicines and therapies for serious diseases. You will also oversee DCS contributions to all research projects at Vertex, through planning, goal-setting, prioritization and resourcing, and portfolio review, to drive accountability and advance our research programs. Candidates should have strong experience in a relevant scientific area, such as drug discovery, therapeutic development, computational chemistry, computer vision, statistics, artificial intelligence, modeling, simulations computational genomics or biology, statistical genetics, data science, chemistry, or biology.

This is a hybrid (3 days/week onsite) position. Boston based location preferred, however, San Diego or Oxford, UK Vertex sites could also be considered.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Oversee department contributions to the global research portfolio to maximize impact and business value. This will include working closely with the computational DCS leads in the project teams and the DCS Leadership Team, to recognize opportunities for project impact, set goals and priorities, and plan resources.
• Ensure alignment for the department through the annual planning process for Global Research projects, to capture resourcing estimates, outsourcing budget, and project goals, including working with Research project managers and Finance
• Lead a regular portfolio review for department leadership to track progress towards goals, identify opportunities to shift prioritization and resourcing, identify risks and mitigation strategies, manage dependencies, review the budget, and drive accountability
• Evaluate scientific opportunities and define strategic investment areas for DCS, to drive business value in line with the Vertex Research and Corporate strategy
• Contribute to determining annual key goals for the department, in both project impact and foundational capabilities, with department and global research leadership.
• Summarize and report on internal resourcing, outsourcing costs, and overall department budget
• Enable cross-functional collaboration and alignment and manage stakeholders across within and outside Research
• Leverage project management skills in managing finances, defining guidelines and processes, intra- and inter-departmental communication, and resource planning for DCS.
• With the DCS Leadership Team, define and contribute to department initiatives, such as our annual in-person summit, people development, leadership team retreats, and organizational design.

Education and Experience:

• Bachelors in a scientific discipline and 10+ years of work experience and 3+ years of management experience
• Experience in leading and developing high performance teams
• Background in a relevant scientific area, such as drug discovery, therapeutic development, computational chemistry, computer vision, statistics, artificial intelligence, modeling, simulations computational genomics or biology, statistical genetics, data science, chemistry, or biology.
• Exceptional ability to effectively lead, plan, manage, track and execute initiatives or projects.
• Cross-functional collaboration skills, including ability to coordinate resources across organizational boundaries.
• Strategic thinking skills that can capture, synthesize, and communicate many considerations, such as scientific opportunity, technical feasibility, value proposition, risk, investment, and trade-offs.
• Strong ability to manage and influence stakeholders, including interpretation of diverse and varied information
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills. Communicates clearly and precisely (reading/writing and verbal) with all levels of the company.
• Understanding of, or ability to quickly learn, about relevant areas such as discovery and development of therapies (e.g. small molecule, cell therapies, genetic therapies) and a breadth of scientific domains (e.g. computational sciences, data science)
• Ability to proactively craft feasible solutions to combat risks and issues.
• Sound judgement balancing risks and making prompt decisions in ambiguous or difficult situations
• Highly skilled in mentoring others, resolving technical or business problems, maintaining procedural and ethical standards, and cultivating healthy team morale

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