Director Product Owner – Lab Execution & Tech Operations

1054 GlaxoSmithKline Services Unlimited; Stevenage; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

GlaxoSmithKline plc is seeking a Director Product Owner for Lab Execution & Service Operations within the Lab Capture & Experience team. You will define long-term roadmaps for LabWare LIMS products, lead agile squads, and ensure high-quality, AI‑ready data and compliant workflows across R&D labs.

You will mentor Product Owners, collaborate with CMC, Clinical and Quality, and manage a diverse team of employees and partners while shaping value-focused investments.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Life Sciences or similar STEM discipline.
• Track record of strategic product leadership in pharma/digital health with LIMS/CMC/R&D domain.
• Experience as business analyst and product manager with agile delivery in tech-enabled environments.
• Strong familiarity with ITIL-aligned service management.
• Experience leading and developing teams including Product Owners and diverse global teams.
• Strong communication skills to influence stakeholders and translate challenges into user-focused solutions.
• Experience collaborating with cross-functional teams and external partners.
• Understanding of FAIR data principles, data standards and governance in regulated environments.

Responsibilities

• Set product vision and strategy for LabCapture & Experience domain.
• Define multi-year roadmap for LabWare LIMS products aligned to R&D strategy.
• Manage Lab Execution and Operations product roadmap, backlog, budget, milestones, quality.
• Lead agile squads and partners to deliver AI-ready, value-driven solutions.
• Design reusable data products with FAIR principles and secure data flow into analytics.
• Establish governance bodies and oversee value delivery, risk, and investment cases.
• Ensure compliance with internal security, risk management and regulatory requirements.
• Oversee service management of LC&E applications with ITIL-aligned processes.
• Line-manage the product group team including mixed internal and external resources.

Skills

Agile

Backlogs

Cross-Functional Teamwork

Design Thinking

DevOps

Process Diagrams

Product Strategy

Project Management

Requirements Gathering

Services Management

Software Development

UX

User Research

User Story

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Life Sciences

Advanced degree in Life Sciences

Tools

LabWare LIMS

LabWare ELN

Job description

Director Product Owner – Lab Execution & Tech Operations Labs & CMC Tech – Lab Capture & Experience (LC&E)

Every medicine and vaccine starts with evidence, and evidence depends on the tools, data and processes that scientists, clinicians and medical teams rely on. R&D & Medical Digital & Tech (RDMDT) builds and runs these digital capabilities that underpin GSK’s mission to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together. GSK remains committed to bold commercial ambitions for the future, aiming to deliver £40billion in annual sales by 2031 by leveraging strong performance momentum and increasing 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. Within RDMDT, the Labs & CMC Lab Capture & Experience (LC&E) team provides the digital backbone for medicines and vaccines R&D data capture delivering AI‑ready, high‑quality, well‑governed data from our laboratories into downstream analytics, modelling and AI.

For candidates seeking to be located at our Stevenage site, this role will temporarily be based at Stevenage. However, the Company plans to relocate its offices to Ware. The location of this role will therefore subsequently change to Ware in accordance with timelines to be set by the Company. The relocation is currently proposed to take effect by early 2029.

Position summary

Join GSK as a Director Product Owner (G5) – Lab Execution & Service Operations in the Lab Capture & Experience team and play a vital role in defining and delivering the target‑state capabilities to ensure that our core GxP R&D LabWare LIMS and wider Lab Execution & Tech Operations systems reliably support the late‑stage portfolio, and to maintaining high‑quality service delivery across an established application landscape of around 150 LC&E applications used in R&D laboratories. You will build and lead a high‑performing team, mentor Product Owners across the community, and bring commercial judgement to decisions that shape how R&D works. You will collaborate closely with stakeholders across Lab Capture & Experience team, CMC, Clinical and Quality as well as service partners to maintain a high performing, robust application landscape that delivers measurable value in lab operations. The role will partner closely with ongoing efforts to re‑design experimental data capture for R&D scientists, ensuring that systems align with new experiment‑capture patterns and deliver integrated, AI‑ready laboratory data while protecting continuity for existing processes and regulatory commitments.

Key Responsibilities

• Set product vision and strategy
• Define and execute a multi-year roadmap for all products within their product group (multiple LabWare LIMS), aligned to R&D Tech architecture, R&D strategy and stakeholders, with a clear focus on value delivery and value‑based investment prioritisation.
• Product Management of the Lab Execution and Operations product: roadmap, backlog, budget, milestones and quality, leading agile squads and partners to deliver high‑value, AI‑ready solutions on time with AI tooling embedded to accelerate, ensuring continuous feedback from business customers and end users.
• Make data and integrations reusable, designing products and data products that embed FAIR principles, support compliant data integrity (ALCOA+) and enable secure, efficient end‑to‑end data flow into analytics, modelling and AI.
• Governance: Establish and lead Governance bodies for the product group, building a cross‑modality user, sponsor and vendor community providing oversight, establishing value, managing delivery/service performance and risk; prepare annual investment cases.
• Quality, Risk & Compliance: Accountable for ensuring products within the product group are compliant with internal security, risk management, and external regulatory/statutory requirements, and that Tech continuity plans are in place for business‑critical products.
• Service Management: Accountable for service management of the LC&E application suite, ensuring appropriate service levels, ITIL‑aligned processes and appropriate response to Voice of the Process (VoP) and Voice of the Customer (VoC).
• People Management: Accountable for line managing the persistent team supporting the product group and ensuring succession planning across a mixture of GSK employees, augmented/contingent workers and strategic suppliers.

Basic qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Life Sciences or similar STEM discipline.
• A track record of strategic product leadership in pharma or digital health, ideally with deep domain expertise in LIMS systems, CMC or related R&D domains.
• Demonstrable experience as a business analyst and/or product manager, with proven experience of product/agile delivery processes in technology-enabled environments.
• Strong familiarity with ITIL‑aligned service management.
• Experience directly leading and developing teams, including line‑managing Product Owners and mixed global teams of employees, contingent workers and strategic suppliers.
• Strong communication skills for engaging and influencing stakeholders at all levels, with the ability to translate complex business challenges into simple, user‑focused solutions.
• Experience collaborating with cross‑functional, diverse development teams and external partners.
• Understanding of FAIR data principles, data standards and governance in regulated environments.

Preferred qualifications

• Advanced degree in Life Sciences.
• Experience with GMP environment.
• Deep understanding of LabWare ELN/LIMS.
• Formal product or agile certification (for example CSPO, SAFe PO/PM).
• Experience with product management tools such as Jira or similar platforms.
• Hands‑on experience applying AI in product discovery or delivery.

What we offer

This Director Product Owner role offers the chance to grow your career while making a meaningful impact on healthcare innovation in an inclusive and welcoming environment. You will be at the forefront of supporting how GSK captures and uses laboratory data, ensuring that solutions are ready for advanced analytics and AI and that they directly support GSK’s Ahead Together strategy. We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive.

Closing Date for Applications: 25 November 2026 (EOD)

Skills

• Agile Methodology
• Backlogs
• Cross‑Functional Teamwork
• Design Thinking
• DevOps
• Process Diagrams
• Product Strategies
• Project Management
• Requirements Gathering
• Services Management
• Software Development
• User Experience (UX)
• User Research
• User Story

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.

Equal Opportunity Employer

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.

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 can thrive. We want GSK to be a place where people feel inspired, encouraged and challenged to be the best they can be. A place where they 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.

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