Director, R&D AI, Insights & Analytics

Position Summary

Lead the strategy and execution of data, analytics, AI, and insights capabilities across the R&D organization to transform how data is leveraged throughout the drug development lifecycle.

Primary Responsibilities

• Define and execute the R&D insights, analytics, AI, and data capability roadmap.
• Lead R&D data governance (ownership, stewardship, ontology, metadata, lineage, business glossary, data quality, FAIR, semantic consistency).
• Establish consistent definitions, metrics, semantic standards, and data quality expectations.
• Partner with Enterprise IT/data engineering on modern R&D data platforms (data lake, lakehouse, cloud).
• Provide expertise for architecture/platform/technology/vendor evaluations (scalability, security, interoperability).
• Build and operationalize clinical development benchmarking (study start-up, enrollment, site performance, cycle times, data quality).
• Develop dashboards, predictive analytics, and decision-support for enrollment, site selection, trial execution, and portfolio oversight.
• Identify and implement AI/ML/predictive analytics/intelligent automation opportunities to accelerate trials.
• Translate R&D use cases into scalable products with Enterprise AI/IT.
• Lead assessments, process/capability mapping, gap analysis, and future-state roadmaps.
• Collaborate across R&D functions to identify high-value data/analytics opportunities.
• Manage vendors/partners for analytics and transformation initiatives.
• Present strategies and progress to senior leadership.

Qualifications/Skills

• Bachelor’s degree in Data Science, CS, Engineering, Life Sciences, or related (advanced degree preferred). 10+ years in R&D analytics/data strategy/clinical development analytics/AI or digital transformation.
• Pharmaceutical/biotech/life sciences experience; strong drug development lifecycle knowledge.
• Data governance leadership; experience with data lake/lakehouse/cloud strategies.
• Working knowledge: Databricks, Snowflake, Microsoft Fabric, AWS, Azure; semantic layer and metadata/catalog tools.
• Experience with clinical performance metrics/benchmarking and dashboards.
• AI/ML and predictive analytics; process mapping/capability assessments/gap analyses.
• Regulated R&D and clinical data standards: GxP, CDISC, SDTM, ADaM, FHIR.
• Ability/willingness to travel domestically/internationally.

Benefits (US-based Employees)

• Competitive base, bonus, equity; medical/dental/vision; employer-paid life/disability/business travel/EAP; 401(k) match 1:1 up to 5%; ESPP (2-year lock-in); 15+ vacation days; 13-15 paid holidays; 10 days paid sick time; paid parental leave; tuition assistance.