Sr Manager, Portfolio

Novo Nordisk A/S; Søborg; Remote; DKK 743,000 - 1,092,000; Full time

Job summary

Novo Nordisk A/S is seeking a Senior Portfolio Manager to help drive clearer, faster decisions across R&D governance and annual planning. You will partner with ADI areas to manage activity portfolios, turning data into insights and supporting value-based decisions that move high‑value activities forward.

You will lead the evolution of portfolio concepts and tools, including governance artefacts and the OKR environment, and coach stakeholders across a complex matrix organisation to adopt new ways

Qualifications

• Master’s degree required in a relevant field.
• 5–8 years of experience in portfolio management, business planning or related discipline.
• Experience creating and quality-assuring portfolio, product or financial data and analyses for senior stakeholders.
• Ability to solve problems, plan and execute workstreams, and coach stakeholders in a matrix organisation.
• Understanding of business processes, governance and annual planning cycles.
• Strong analytical, facilitation and communication skills with sound judgement.

Responsibilities

• Partner with ADI areas to manage activity portfolios, ensure alignment with strategy and track performance.
• Turn portfolio data into actionable insights, dashboards and presentations for governance forums.
• Own and evolve concepts and tools; keep them current and easy to use.
• Lead end-to-end improvement projects to update or automate portfolio concepts and tools.
• Drive adoption of new ways of working, focusing on annual planning and cross-functional alignment.

Skills

Portfolio management

Stakeholder management

Data analysis

Facilitation

Communication

Problem solving

Governance

Education

Master’s degree in business administration, economics, finance, engineering, life sciences or related field

Tools

Azure DevOps

Job description

As Senior Portfolio Manager, you will help ADI make clearer, faster decisions about where its effort goes. You will partner with ADI areas to manage their activity portfolios, turn portfolio data into insight decision makers can act on, and strengthen the concepts and tools behind governance and annual planning. Your work brings transparency to trade-offs across Research & Development, so the right activities move forward with momentum, and resources go where they create the most value.

What you’ll bring

You know how to turn complex portfolio data into clear recommendations, and how to bring people with you when you have no formal authority. You will also bring:

• A master’s degree in business administration, economics, finance, engineering, life sciences or another relevant field.
• 5–8 years of relevant experience in portfolio management, business planning, consulting, project management, change management or a related discipline.
• Experience creating and quality-assuring portfolio, product or financial data, analyses, reporting and decision materials for senior stakeholders.
• A proven ability to solve problems, plan and execute workstreams, manage improvement initiatives and coach stakeholders in a complex matrix organisation.
• A solid understanding of business processes, governance and annual planning cycles.
• Strong analytical, facilitation and communication skills, with sound judgement and the ability to navigate ambiguity and competing priorities.

Desirable, but not essential:

Pharmaceutical or healthcare industry experience; experience with portfolio or work-management tools; experience using automation or AI-enabled tools to improve workflows; certifications in Lean Six Sigma, agile project management, change management or product management.

What you’ll do

You will make portfolio management and governance work in practice – simple to use, grounded in data and focused on value.

• Partner with selected ADI areas to manage their activity portfolios, ensuring alignment with business strategy, value-based decisions and effective tracking of performance and outcomes.
• Turn portfolio data into actionable insights, dashboards and presentations, and represent Portfolio Management & Governance in selected ADI and R&D governance forums.
• Own and evolve selected concepts, artefacts and tools, such as the activity-based cost model, value framework, Product Team Playbook and the portfolio management and OKR environment in Azure DevOps, so they stay current and easy to use.
• Lead improvement projects end to end to update, replace or automate portfolio concepts, tools and processes, testing and scaling AI-enabled tools where they improve data quality, efficiency or user experience.
• Drive adoption of new ways of working, with a focus on the annual planning cycle, by coaching stakeholders across the matrix and building alignment without formal authority.

Who you’ll work with

You will join the Portfolio Management & Governance team within ADI, part of R&D, and report to the Head of Portfolio Management & Governance. In R&D, colleagues explore scientific ideas and advance them towards clinical testing, bringing together curiosity, data, technology, collaboration and operational excellence.

Your closest partners will be leadership and executing teams in your assigned ADI areas, together with your Portfolio Management & Governance colleagues. You will also work with ADI Finance and support functions such as Product Management Excellence and Tech Delivery Excellence, R&D line-of-business stakeholders who sponsor, enable or adopt ADI projects and products, and the governance bodies that set priorities. Externally, you will work with consultants and partners supporting portfolio concepts, tools and improvement initiatives.

With a global scope, you will bring these perspectives together, create clarity on trade-offs and help decisions move forward at pace.

What you can expect here

You will be trusted to work with a high degree of autonomy, making independent recommendations, leading projects from scope to benefit realisation and guiding colleagues as a subject-matter expert. Your voice will shape how portfolio decisions are prepared and made across ADI.

You will build new skills through hands-on work with data, automation and AI-enabled tools, as Novo upskills its workforce to advance AI as a driver of innovation. You will also contribute to team priorities and knowledge sharing in a team that values respect, honest feedback and continuous improvement.

Salary:

For this role, the Annual Base Salary for employees based in Denmark ranges from 742,600 to 1,091,600 DKK. The placement within the salary range will be assessed during the recruitment process based on the candidate’s skills, competencies, knowledge and relevant experience.

Incentives and Benefits:

The salary package may include short-term and/or long-term incentives as well as other employee benefits based on position level, location, functional area and relevant market benchmarks.

Learn more about our Reward Philosophy here

We are an equal opportunities employer and are committed to an inclusive recruitment process and equality of opportunity for all applicants.