Senior Director

The successful candidate hired previously worked at McKinsey

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This company was supported by Gaby, Client Success Manager.

An in-depth description of the role

About GSK

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is a science-led global healthcare company that researches and develops a broad range of innovative products in three primary areas of Pharmaceuticals, Vaccines and Consumer Healthcare.

The company has a significant global presence with operations in more than 150 countries, a network of 87 manufacturing sites in 36 countries, and large R&D centres in the UK, USA and Belgium.

The three main business areas are:

• Pharmaceuticals – The Pharmaceuticals business discovers, develops and makes medicines to treat a broad range of the world’s most common acute and chronic diseases. The business generated sales of £17.3 billion in 2017, representing 57% of the total turnover of the Group. 
• Vaccines – The Vaccines business has the broadest portfolio of any company, with vaccines for people of all ages. GSK’s pipeline of potential new vaccines covers many of the diseases still having a serious impact around the world, including malaria, HIV, TB and Ebola. In 2017, the business contributed £5.2 billion (17%) to the overall turnover of the Group. 
• Consumer Healthcare – The Consumer Healthcare business develops and markets products in Wellness, Oral health, Nutrition and Skin health. It has a portfolio of some of the world’s most trusted and best-selling brands which includes Sensodyne, Voltaren and Panadol. GSK holds number one positions in Wellness across 36 markets. In 2017, the Consumer Healthcare business accounted for £7.8 billion, or 26%, of total Group turnover. 

About Beyond and the DDA program

Developments in technology and data have the power to transform GSK’s business model and deliver value for our customers, consumers, patients and employees. Although Pharma has been one of the last industries to embrace digitization, change is emerging fast, providing both opportunities for GSK and significant threats and challenges. 

To drive this transformation GSK, in September 2017, appointed Karenann Terrell as Chief Digital & Technology Officer with a company-wide remit across digital and technology domains. Karenann came to GSK from Walmart where she was Chief Information Officer. 

The changing external landscape creates several burning platforms, but also significant opportunities, for the pharma industry. The Digital, Data and Analytics program is designed to target these opportunities and transform the way GSK operates. In order to accelerate this transformation, Karenann Terrell newly established GSK Beyond, a cross-functional DD&A innovation group within the tech organization to connect the best of the outside world to GSK and the best of GSK to the outside world.

GSK Beyond is a tech innovation and incubation team set up to engage externally with the innovation and venture ecosystem, leading academics, and thought partners in the digital health space to help GSK deliver transformational medicines and patient experiences to our customers beyond what has been believed possible previously. Beyond interacts with all three business units of GSK – Pharma, Vaccines, and Consumer Health – to identify, explore and embed the latest technology and innovation through internal ideation workshops and key stakeholder engagement leading to joint projects to demonstrate feasibility, assess the value of identified DD&A opportunities and inspire novel thinking. In addition, Beyond independently develops radical, high-risk innovation ideas from inception to proof of concept with the goal to demonstrate disruptive innovation from within the organization to be scaled by the appropriate business unit.

For this highly vibrant team, we need a talented, high potential individual to continuously analyze and adjust the strategic direction of the team in this dynamic innovation area and drive internal high-visibility engagements. The role will be challenging, fast-paced and high profile, and – for the right individual – will progress to leadership role in the new, evolving digital and data organization. 

Role purpose

Reporting to the VP of Beyond, this is a Strategy leadership role, ensuring the successful development and execution of the Beyond Strategy(ies), informing Beyond as they Seek, Identify, Incubate, Evaluate and Promote new technologies, solutions and collaborative partnerships designed to advance GSK’s Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Offerings.  The role will be challenging, fast-paced and high profile, and – for the right individual – will progress to positions of increasing scope and responsibility in the new, evolving digital and data organization. Key responsibilities include:

• Lead the development of the Beyond Strategy(ies), influencing and aligning with the strategic directions of GSK’s primary functional organizations (Pharma R&D, Pharma Commercial, Vaccines and Consumer Health)
• Inform and influence strategic decisions across the GSK Tech organization (expected to be accepted as a key thought leader in Technology Futures across the GSK technology organization)
• Application of the Beyond Strategy(ies), working with the other members of the Beyond (and key partners/stakeholders, both internal and external) to inform and establish new ideas and initiatives
• Communicate strategic direction to internal senior / executive stakeholders and contributors as well as external suppliers / partners / collaborators / researchers 
• Research technologies, start-ups, partners, healthcare advancements, industry developments and other signals to serve as input to strategy development and inform future strategic decisions
• Ideate: Incorporate the implications of research and outcomes from experiments into the process of imagining the art of the possible (high level strategic approaches, designs / architectures)
• Connect: Bring together ad-hoc collaborative working teams (from inside and outside GSK) to consider and advance ideas
• Cultivate / Transform: Provide senior leadership in the process of evaluating ideas and deciding which ones become Experiments (Beyondshots).  Recommend the advancement or termination of Ideas or Experiments  
• Analyse: Evaluate experiments for viability

Key requirements and capabilities

Our ideal candidate has 5-10 years in applicable Technology or Life Science focused Management Consulting roles (with significant portion of time in leadership positions). You should have a broad experience background, learning agility and the ability to multi-task in a dynamic environment.

• Experience: At least 2 years of blue-chip strategy consulting, including demonstrable experience in technology innovation with proven digital thought leadership (ideally in healthcare), and experience of working in the pharma/healthcare industry as well as plenty of leadership experience.
• Knowledge and application: MSc or equivalent / several specialisms in one or more of Technology, Life Sciences, Engineering or Organizational Management. A PhD in a biomedical or engineering field would be hugely beneficial but is not essential.
• Problem Solving & Innovation: The ability to anticipate and extrapolate the value of emerging technologies / industry trends and correspondingly inform the construction of a prioritized portfolio of experiments leading to potential solution(s) from a seemingly unrelated combination of components/factors.
• Interaction: Significant communication skills (written and oral) are required, along with strong listening skills.  Additionally, influencing skills are essential to success.  The ability to paint a picture that describes something that does not yet exist and effectively express the potential is key to success.
• Multi-Cultural Requirements: A working understanding of cultural influences around the globe is a regular part of this role, to understand how different countries/cultures introduce and address change and adopt new solutions.
• Further desired experience (beneficial but not essential): Tangible Evidence of an entrepreneurial mindset, including work in small company/start-up, VC or digital organization, and/or Business Development and/or alliance management experience in an innovation unit

What we offer

Opportunity to join the most exciting and high-impact teams in GSK, working with highly motivated and talented colleagues with scope for progression to GSK leadership
Competitive compensation and benefits package.

Location: GSK HQ in Brentford, UK (30 mins from Central London) or US (Philadelphia, PA or Research Triangle Park, North Carolina) (UK preferred)

Salary/comp: £120-130K + annual bonus and other LTIs

Start date: ASAP