Director, R&D IT Operational Excellence

Director, R&D IT Operational Excellence

Mississauga, Ontario  

IT

Hybrid Work- on average 3 days/week from office

The Director, R&D IT Operational Excellence 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. 

The role serves as the operational leader for assigned R&D IT capability portfolios, overseeing 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. 

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 collaborative, one-team approach.  

• Drive operational discipline 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. 

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

• Monitor 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 where necessary. 

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

Essential for the role

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

• 5-7 years+ experience in 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. 

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

• Experience leveraging 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. 

Great People want to Work with us! Find out why:

• GTAA Top Employer Award for 12 years

• Top 100 Employers Award

• Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Culture

• Learn more about working with us in Canada

• View our YouTube channel

Are you interested in working at AZ? Apply today!

AstraZeneca is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to diversity and inclusion and providing a workplace that is free from discrimination. AstraZeneca is committed to accommodating persons with disabilities. Such accommodation is available on request in respect of all aspects of the recruitment, assessment and selection process and may be requested by emailing AZCHumanResources@astrazeneca.com.

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Annual base salary for this position ranges from 147,292.80 to 193,321.80.

AstraZeneca is committed to providing fair and equitable compensation opportunities to all colleagues. Our compensation policies and practices have been designed to allow colleagues to progress through the salary range over time as they progress in their role. The range provided in this posting represents an offer pay range used in a majority of situations. The base pay offered will vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including the candidate's skills and experience, job-related knowledge, and other specific business and organizational needs.  In some cases, offers outside the range may also be considered to address unique circumstances.

In addition, our permanent positions offer an annual Variable Pay Bonus/Short Term Incentive opportunity as well as eligibility to participate in our equity-based long-term incentive program (if applicable to role).  Benefits offered for permanent roles include a competitive Flex Benefits & Retirement Savings Program, 4 weeks’ paid vacation, and annual Personal Days. Fixed Term Contract/Temporary positions (excluding students) are offered a Contract Benefits Program.

We are using AI as part of the recruitment process.

This advertisement relates to a current vacancy.

AstraZeneca embraces diversity and equality of opportunity. We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team representing all backgrounds, with as wide a range of perspectives as possible, and harnessing industry-leading skills. We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be. We welcome and consider applications to join our team from all qualified candidates, regardless of their characteristics. We comply with all applicable laws and regulations on non-discrimination in employment (and recruitment), as well as work authorisation and employment eligibility verification requirements.