Director, Portfolio Management

GlaxoSmithKline; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

GlaxoSmithKline seeks a Director, Portfolio Management to partner with RI&I leadership and support the R&D lifecycle from preclinical to late-stage development. You will perform probabilistic ROI/NPV analyses, advise investment boards, and collaborate with Strategy, Finance, and Commercial teams to optimise the portfolio.

The role offers a hybrid model with London HQ and potential US collaboration. The position requires extensive R&D experience, strong cross-functional leadership, and proven

Qualifications

• Proven experience of pharmaceutical, healthcare or related industry
• Bachelor’s Degree in a related field
• Understanding of Commercial and/or R&D processes with experience in leading or supporting project teams in drug development preferred
• A track record of independent delivery on projects
• Demonstrate matrix management skills and clear ability to work effectively in a senior cross-functional team environment
• Demonstrate aptitude for managing multiple projects and priorities
• Apply skills to achieve expedited project delivery; including coordination and planning, fostering teamwork, and thinking strategically
• Demonstrate effective communication and negotiation skills for a wide variety of audiences, including senior management
• Demonstrate strong influencing skills and personal resilience, with sufficient depth in drug development to engage R&D leaders as a peer

Responsibilities

• Guiding portfolio decisions across RI&I and broader Pharmaceutical pipeline through ROI/NPV analyses
• Lead or support project teams through preclinical to late-stage development with governance boards
• Provide clear recommendations to investment bodies based on rigorous analyses
• Collaborate with Strategy, Finance, Commercial and Research units to optimise resources
• Drive external benchmarking and adoption of data-driven portfolio approaches

Skills

Pharma industry experience

Communication & negotiation

Matrix management

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s degree in related field

PhD/MBA or advanced degree

Job description

Director, Portfolio Management Business Introduction

GSK remains committed to achieving bold commercial ambitions for the future. By 2031, we aim to deliver £40 billion in annual sales, leveraging our existing strong performance momentum to significantly increase our positive impact on the health of billions of patients globally. Our Ahead Together strategy is centred on early intervention to prevent and alter the course of disease, thereby protecting people and supporting healthcare systems. Our diverse portfolio consists of vaccines, specialty medicines, and general medicines. Through continuous innovation and a dedicated focus on scientific and technical excellence, we strive to develop and launch new, groundbreaking treatments that address critical health challenges.

Position Summary

The purpose of this role is to partner with the Head, Portfolio Decision Sciences, Respiratory, Immunology & Inflammation (RI&I) to support the portfolio throughout the R&D lifecycle (from preclinical Research to late-stage clinical Development), covering the RI&I and broader Pharmaceutical pipeline. This includes individual project assessments, and addressing strategic and operational portfolio questions to help progress and enhance the pipeline. As a portfolio decision scientist in R&D, you will work directly with pipeline project teams and governance boards to evaluate investment opportunities where there is still significant uncertainty and limited data. You will need to adopt systematic approaches in assessing uncertainties and risks, and conduct probabilistic evaluations to guide technical progression and investment decisions. Economic analyses (including ROI and NPV) will cover different development options and highlight points for discussion in key scenarios and/or sensitivities. Your work with pipeline project teams (including project leaders, functional leads, etc.) and across the organisation (Strategy, Business Development, Finance, Commercial, etc.) will lead to robust recommendations that inform decision-making at senior R&D Leadership fora (including PIB, DRB, and the Research Unit investment boards). To be effective, the person in this role must be highly skilled in using data-driven portfolio analyses from not only internal, but also external perspectives to generate clear, objective and concise insights. This person will be expected to drive challenging conversations in an open and constructive manner to generate strategically-differentiated investment options, provide clear objective analyses and insights to support pipeline investment decisions, and utilise cutting-edge data trends/technology capabilities for portfolio decision making. The successful candidate is a portfolio expert with extensive R&D experience, as well as a change agent and innovative thinker, comfortable navigating the extended RI&I and/or R&D ecosystem at GSK to ensure success of the entire unit. This person is intellectually curious with a track record of seeking out novel solutions to both project-specific and portfolio-wide issues and demonstrates a high level of energy, enthusiasm and commitment, and who monitors the external environment for advances in data and technology that could be applied to portfolio management and high-quality decision making at GSK.

Responsibilities

The role will be responsible for Decision Sciences and Portfolio Management in the Pharmaceutical portfolio (spanning preclinical Research and clinical Development, both in RI&I and beyond). This role will provide you the opportunity to support highly visible decisions at the senior leadership level, enhancing your enterprise-wide portfolio exposure, through objective analyses, portfolio context and a consistent approach across decision-making bodies to support pipeline investment decisions. Specific responsibilities include:

• Guiding pipeline project teams across the R&D lifecycle (from preclinical to late-stage clinical development, and including business development) through strategic decisions and economic analyses (e.g. eliciting the probability of success, assessing the economics [ROI and NPV] of different project development options), facilitating team decision making and option evaluation, and bridging portfolio- and project-level considerations between senior leaders and teams
• Working with pipeline project teams to provide objective individual project assessments for R&D investment decisions at RI&I RU board, other Research Unit R&D governance and the Portfolio Investment Board (PIB)
• Providing specific recommendation(s) to investment body chair(s) on the opportunities being assessed, based on rigorous analyses of options, value-risk assessment, clear delineation of where risk is discharged, and how to optimise use of resources and capabilities
• Leading portfolio- or indication-level assessments to enable senior GSK leaders to make portfolio prioritisation and investment decisions, highlighting trade-offs based upon multiple factors (including scientific, clinical, commercial, strategic, operational, and financial)
• Bringing the external lens to portfolio and investment decisions, applying an equity analyst mindset to assess our assets as the market would by testing valuation assumptions, PTRS and peak sales against sell-side and competitor benchmarks
• Supporting the biannual dynamic Portfolio Review (dPR) process for RI&I, ensuring refreshed pipeline project views and surfacing of new investment opportunities, and informing the RI&I portfolio prioritisation to optimise how functions deploy resources
• Collaborating with colleagues across the portfolio management team, the broader finance group, the Research Unit leaders, and partners in strategy, project management, operations, etc to recommend areas of short-term and longer-term focus from a disease area, indication, modality perspective and offer risk mitigation approaches to optimise the GSK portfolio overall including optimisation of resources
• Driving portfolio management effectiveness and efficiency by monitoring the external environment for insights on overall portfolio management, evaluating specific portfolio approaches in your areas (e.g. disease area or modality), and proposing use-cases to apply such innovations to portfolio decision making at GSK
• Enhancing the development of and deploying advanced analytics, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, to inform and shape decisions by teams and senior leaders

Qualifications/Skills

Basic Qualifications:

• Proven experience of pharmaceutical, healthcare or related industry experience
• Bachelor’s Degree in a related field
• Understanding of Commercial and/or R&D processes with experience in leading or supporting project teams in drug development preferred
• A track record of independent delivery on projects
• Demonstrate matrix management skills and clear ability to work effectively in a senior cross-functional team environment
• Demonstrate aptitude for managing multiple projects and priorities
• Apply skills to achieve expedited project delivery; including coordination and planning, fostering teamwork, and thinking strategically
• Demonstrate effective communication and negotiation skills for a wide variety of audiences, including senior management
• Demonstrate strong influencing skills and personal resilience, with sufficient depth in drug development to engage R&D leaders as a peer, constructively challenge development plans and shape decisions without formal authority
• Apply a well organised and methodical approach to problem-solving
• Set up processes and encourage others to create multiple options, strategies or contingency plans, where pros and cons are compared prior to deciding on the way forward

Preferred Qualifications:

• High learning agility required to understand and facilitate technical, value and resourcing discussions to achieve the governance outcomes.
• PhD, MBA, other Advanced Degree
• Strong written and verbal communication skills to translate detailed scientific, technical and resource discussions into clear and concise presentations and recommendations.
• Adept at building trust and credibility with senior leaders and project teams to be sought after as a strategic thought partner and challenger.
• Cross-functional stakeholder management skills
• Demonstrated success in enabling and driving change

Work Location

This role is based from GSK HQ, London or Upper Providence, USA and offers a hybrid working model, combining on-site and remote work.

Closing Date for Applications

20th October 2026

Why GSK?

Uniting science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together. GSK is a global biopharma company with a purpose to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together. We aim to positively impact the health of 2.5 billion people by the end of the decade, as a successful, growing company where people can thrive. We get ahead of disease by preventing and treating it with innovation in specialty medicines and vaccines. We focus on four therapeutic areas: respiratory, immunology and inflammation; oncology; HIV; and infectious diseases – to impact health at scale. People and patients around the world count on the medicines and vaccines we make, so we’re committed to creating an environment where our people can thrive and focus on what matters most. Our culture of being ambitious for patients, accountable for impact and doing the right thing is the foundation for how, together, we deliver for patients, shareholders and our people.

GSK is an Equal Opportunity Employer. This ensures that all qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), parental status, national origin, age, disability, genetic information (including family medical history), military service or any basis prohibited under federal, state or local law. We believe in an agile working culture for all our roles. If flexibility is important to you, we encourage you to explore with our hiring team what the opportunities are. Should you require any adjustments to our process to assist you in demonstrating your strengths and capabilities contact us at [e-mail] where you can also request a call. Please note should your enquiry not relate to adjustments, we will not be able to support you through these channels. However, we have created a Recruitment FAQ guide. Click the link where you will find answers to multiple questions we receive.

We are a global biopharma company with a special purpose – to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together – so we can positively impact the health of billions of people and deliver stronger, more sustainable shareholder returns – as an organisation where people can thrive. Getting ahead means preventing disease as well as treating it, and we aim to impact the health of 2.5 billion people around the world in the next 10 years. Our success absolutely depends on our people. While getting ahead of disease together is about our ambition for patients and shareholders, it’s also about making GSK a place where people feel inspired, encouraged and challenged to be the best they can be. A place where people can be themselves – feeling welcome, valued and included. Where they can keep growing and look after their wellbeing. So, if you share our ambition, join us at this exciting moment in our journey to get Ahead Together. Find out more on our career site.