Associate Director, Information Architecture

Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd; Princeton (NJ); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd seeks an Associate Director, Information Architecture to shape the enterprise data framework for the organization, driving standards, reference architectures, and semantic layers that enable trusted data for analytics, AI, and decision-making.

The role partners with Data Stewards, Data Owners, and platform teams to ensure architecture adoption across R&D, Clinical, Commercial and compliance domains, while aligning with CDISC, HL7/FHIR, OMOP, and IDMP frameworks.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 8+ years of progressive experience in Information Architecture, Data Architecture, or Enterprise Data Modeling, with at least 3 years in a senior/lead capacity.
• Demonstrated experience working in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, or life sciences industry, with deep knowledge of pharma data, data flows, and business processes across R&D, Clinical, Commercial, and/or compliance/security domain.
• Hands-on expertise with pharmaceutical and healthcare data standards, including CDISC (SDTM, ADaM, CDASH), HL7 / FHIR, OMOP, IDMP, and other regulatory data standards.
• Deep expertise in conceptual, logical, and physical data modeling.

Skills

Information architecture

Data architecture

Enterprise data modeling

Pharma data standards

Job description

Job Summary

We are seeking an experienced Associate Director, Information Architecture to join our IT Data and AI Platform organization and shape the foundation upon which Otsuka’s Information Governance Program will be built. In this pivotal role, you will define the guidelines, standards, and reference architectures that govern how data is structured, described, and connected across the enterprise—making information discoverable, trusted, and ready to fuel analytics, AI, and business decision-making.

This role is anchored by three strategic pillars: (1) establishing enterprise-wide information architecture standards that align data structures across domains with business processes; (2) enabling semantic understanding and findability through taxonomies, ontologies, knowledge graphs, and AI context layers; and (3) partnering with data domain teams and stewards to ensure the architecture is adopted, evolves with the business, and delivers measurable value.

At Otsuka, we defy limitation, so that others can too. We have an unwavering belief in doing more. In transcending expectations. In going above and beyond—under any circumstances—for patients, families, providers, and for each other. It’s this deep-rooted dedication that drives us to uncover answers to complex, underserved medical needs, so that patients can push past the limitations of their disease and achieve more than they thought was possible each and every day.

We believe that the bigger the challenge, the bigger the opportunity. We are doing everything in our power to live up to our mission of creating new products for better health worldwide in two important therapeutic categories: neuroscience and nephrology.

Job Description

The Associate Director, Information Architecture will be a key member of the Information Governance leadership team, responsible for designing and evolving the information architecture that supports Otsuka’s data, analytics, and AI ambitions. The Associate Director will collaborate with Data Stewards, Data Owners, Data Product Owners, Platform Owners, and business stakeholders to translate business processes into well-structured, semantically rich, and interoperable data assets.

Core Responsibilities include but are not limited to the following:

Information Architecture Strategy & Standards

• Define and maintain the enterprise information architecture strategy, principles, and reference models that guide how data is structured across data domains (R&D, Clinical, Commercial, Compliance/Security, Corporate).
• Establish enterprise standards for data modeling, taxonomies, ontologies, controlled vocabularies, and semantic layers.
• Ensure alignment with industry standards relevant to pharmaceutical and healthcare data, including CDISC (SDTM, ADaM, CDASH), HL7 / FHIR , OMOP , IDMP , and other applicable frameworks.
• Develop the roadmap for evolving Otsuka’s information architecture in support of AI, GenAI, and advanced analytics use cases.

Data Domain Modeling & Business Process Mapping

• Partner with Data Stewards and Data Owners to define conceptual, logical, and physical data models across domains.
• Map data assets to business processes and business capabilities, providing end-to-end visibility of data lifecycle from creation to consumption.
• Identify and drive resolution of structural gaps, redundancies, and inconsistencies across data domains.
• Collaborate with Solution Architects and Platform Leads to ensure that solution designs align with enterprise information architecture standards.

Taxonomies, Ontologies & Knowledge Graphs

• Design and govern enterprise taxonomies and ontologies that enable consistent classification, tagging, and semantic interoperability of information assets.
• Lead the design and evolution of enterprise knowledge graphs to connect entities, relationships, and business context across data assets.
• Define the metadata framework required to support knowledge graph population, curation, and evolution.
• Partner with the Enterprise Data Catalogue Platform Owner to operationalize taxonomies, ontologies, and semantic assets in tools such as Atlan and integrate them across the data ecosystem.

AI Context Layers & Semantic Enablement

• Define and evolve the AI Context Layer —the semantic layer that enables Large Language Models (LLMs), agents, and RAG pipelines to reliably access, interpret, and reason over enterprise data.
• Establish standards for structured context, prompt-grounding metadata, and semantic annotations required by AI applications.
• Collaborate with the AI Platform Lead, AI Engineers, and Data Scientists to ensure that AI solutions are grounded in accurate, well-described, and governed data.
• Contribute to the responsible AI framework by ensuring explainability, provenance, and traceability of AI-consumed data assets.

Stewardship, Adoption & Enablement

• Partner with Data Stewards, Data Owners, and Data Product Owners to embed information architecture standards into their day-to-day practices.
• Develop training, playbooks, and reference implementations to accelerate adoption of information architecture standards across the enterprise.
• Coach and mentor the Information Architect(s) and provide technical guidance to domain-aligned modelers.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to business and IT stakeholders on all matters of information structure, semantics, and interoperability.

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement

• Collaborate with the Data Quality & Metadata Lead to ensure that architectural standards are supported by quality controls and metadata practices.
• Partner with the Data and Analytics Service Delivery Leads to ensure solution delivery aligns with enterprise information architecture.
• Engage with Information Security, Legal, and Compliance to embed classification, sensitivity, and regulatory dimensions into the information architecture.
• Represent Information Architecture in enterprise architecture forums, data governance councils, and cross-functional working groups.

Qualifications

Knowledge / Experience and Skills:

• Minimum of 8+ years of progressive experience in Information Architecture, Data Architecture, or Enterprise Data Modeling, with at least 3 years in a senior/lead capacity.
• Demonstrated experience working in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, or life sciences industry, with deep knowledge of pharma data, data flows, and business processes across R&D, Clinical, Commercial, and/or compliance/security domain.
• Hands-on expertise with pharmaceutical and healthcare data standards, includingCDISC (SDTM, ADaM, CDASH), HL7 / FHIR , OMOP , IDMP , and other regulatory data standards.
• Deep expertise in conceptual, logical, and physical data modeling