Associate Director, Product Management

Novartis; East Hanover (NJ); On-site; USD 146,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive benefits

401(k) plan with company match

Generous PTO

Job summary

Novartis seeks a data-driven product leader for the US CRM ecosystem modernization. Translate business needs into actionable data product backlogs, prioritize with the Director, and lead an agile scrum team delivering platform and data activation capabilities across Salesforce and related tools.

Collaborate with privacy, architecture, and commercial stakeholders to ensure governance and scalable solutions. This role requires strong data fluency, cross-functional influence, and a track record of

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required; Master of Science and/or MBA preferred.
• 5+ years of product management with data platforms, SaaS, or platform roles.
• Hands-on knowledge of Salesforce Data Cloud implementation, data model, and data activation.
• CRM landscape familiarity across Salesforce, Veeva, and major players; data activation requirements.
• Understanding of data platforms, CRM, and AI architectures (e.g., Snowflake, OpenAI).
• Experience managing a scrum team end-to-end, from roadmap to delivery.
• Excellent cross-functional stakeholder management and collaboration across product orgs.
• Strong written and verbal communication; ability to translate technical concepts for business audiences.

Responsibilities

• Own and deliver defined data-centric capabilities from discovery through release and maintenance.
• Prioritize backlog with Director based on capacity and strategic alignment; communicate decisions to stakeholders.
• Lead and manage the scrum team, ceremonies, grooming, and capacity planning; remove blockers.
• Coordinate with CRM product managers, architecture, analytics, privacy/legal, and commercial stakeholders.
• Represent data activation needs in platform planning and ensure coherent platform-wide decisions.
• Analyze data sources to support unification, identity resolution, and schema design decisions.
• Work with Data Foundations to define data models and ingestion flows; create user stories for tech teams.
• Design and validate segments and calculated insights for data activation alignment with business needs.

Skills

Data platforms

Salesforce Data Cloud

CRM Knowledge

Agile/Scrum

Stakeholder mgmt

Communication

Data architectures

Education

Bachelor's degree

MS/MBA preferred

Tools

Salesforce

Veeva

Snowflake

OpenAI

Job description

Summary

This position will be located at East Hanover, NJ site and will not have the ability to be located remotely. This position will require 10% travel as defined by the business (domestic and/or international).

Job Description Summary

Novartis is on a mission to transform medicine and improve lives worldwide. As a global leader in healthcare, we leverage advanced technology and data to deliver patient‑centric solutions, enhance customer engagement, and drive innovation. We collaborate closely with the US business, bringing insights and challenging ideas to empower smarter, data‑driven decision‑making. The US CRM organization sits within Strategy, Platforms & Transformation (SPT) – AI & Platform Products and plays a crucial role in driving the transformation to a next‑generation Customer360 operating model.

Novartis seeks an accomplished product leader with a track record of turning business demand from multiple commercial functions into a well‑managed data product backlog. Strong prioritization judgement, stakeholder partnership, and hands‑on data fluency are essential to success in this role.

Partnering closely with the Director, PO Audience Activation & Marketing Intelligence, the Associate Director, Audience Activation Product Manager supports the strategy, development, and delivery of priority capabilities, particularly from a data activation & enablement perspective, across the US CRM ecosystem. Novartis is transforming its CRM ecosystem, and this role will play a key role in enabling this. The role partners with business, peer SPT and technology teams to translate customer and field needs into clear requirements, manage a prioritized backlog, and drive execution through agile delivery. The Associate Director helps improve how Novartis engages customers by prioritizing process improvements through scalable technology enhancements, analytics, and user experience updates – while ensuring solutions meet governance, privacy, and compliance expectations.

About the Role

Key Responsibilities

• Own and deliver a defined product area: Lead end-to-end delivery of assigned data-centric capabilities, such as platform & data integrations, data ingestion, transformation, and unified customer profile management, and enabling CRM capabilities & workflows, from discovery through release, hyper-care, enhancements, and ongoing maintenance.
• Drive prioritization: Continuously prioritize and de-prioritize backlog items with the Director based on platform capacity, strategic alignment, and cross-functional trade-offs, and communicate decisions to stakeholders.
• Lead and manage the scrum team: lead a dedicated scrum team through sprint ceremonies, backlog grooming, and capacity planning; remove blockers, manage dependencies, and protect team velocity and morale.
• Partner across business and IT: Coordinate with CRM product managers, architecture, analytics, privacy/legal, and commercial/medical stakeholders to align on requirements, sequencing, and release readiness.
• Represent data activation platform in CRM planning: represent CRM function needs in platform-level planning, architecture discussions; partner with the Director and other function product managers to ensure coherent, platform-wide decision-making.
• Support data modeling: Analyze existing customer and operational data sources to support unification, identity resolution, and schema design decisions for new use cases.
• Partner with Data Foundations: Work with data engineers and architects to define and validate data models, ingestion flows, and harmonization logic; support the creation of user stories and functional requirements for technical teams.
• Enable activation: Work with the scrum team and data analysts to design and validate segments, calculated insights, and data activation strategies in alignment with business needs.

Experience

Novartis seeks an accomplished product management leader with a track record managing data platform capabilities within commercial operations and demonstrated success transforming CRM capabilities within commercial operations. Strong prioritization judgement, stakeholder partnership, and hands‑on data fluency are essential to success in this role.

Essential Requirements

• Education: Bachelor's degree in a related field is required; Master of Science and/or MBA preferred
• Minimum 5+ years of product management experience, with a strong track record in data platforms, enterprise SaaS, or platform/enablement product roles.
• Hands-on knowledge, preferably Salesforce Data 360 (Data Cloud), including its implementation, capabilities, data model, architecture, and how it supports data activation across business functions; this is a core requirement for the role.
• Deep understanding of the CRM landscape (Sales, Marketing and Service) and how field use cases drive data activation requirements. CRM familiarity preferred across Salesforce (Agentforce, Marketing Cloud, Health Cloud, Data360, Core platform), Veeva, and the major and evolving players in the ecosystem.
• Understanding of Data platforms, CRM, and AI and architectures (e.g., Salesforce, Salesforce Data Cloud, Veeva, OpenAI, Snowflake, or similar data lake technologies).
• Demonstrated experience managing a scrum team end-to-end: from roadmap definition through sprint execution and delivery.
• Excellent cross-functional stakeholder management and experience working across multiple product organizations, aligning priorities, and building trust without direct authority.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to translate complex platform concepts for business audiences and business requirements for technical teams.

Highly Preferred

• Familiarity with cross-product integration patterns, including APIs, data pipelines, and activation workflows.
• Background in pharma, life sciences, or a similarly regulated, data-intensive industry.
• Experience working in a matrixed organization where multiple product functions share a common platform infrastructure.
• Agile/Scrum certification or equivalent formal training.

Novartis Compensation Summary

The salary for this position is expected to range between $145,600.00 and $270,400.00 per year.

The final salary offered is determined based on factors like, but not limited to, relevant skills and experience, and upon joining Novartis will be reviewed periodically. Novartis may change the published salary range based on company and market factors.

Your compensation will include a performance-based cash incentive and, depending on the level of the role, eligibility to be considered for annual equity awards.

US-based eligible employees will receive a comprehensive benefits package that includes health, life and disability benefits, a 401(k) with company contribution and match, and a variety of other benefits. In addition, employees are eligible for a generous time off package including vacation, personal days, holidays and other leaves.

Why Novartis

Helping people with disease and their families takes more than innovative science. It takes a community of smart, passionate people like you. Collaborating, supporting and inspiring each other. Combining to achieve breakthroughs that change patients’ lives. Ready to create a brighter future together? https://www.novartis.com/about/strategy/people-and-culture

Benefits and Rewards

Learn about all the ways we’ll help you thrive personally and professionally.

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EEO Statement

The Novartis Group of Companies are Equal Opportunity Employers. We do not discriminate in recruitment, hiring, training, promotion or other employment practices for reasons of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital or veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.

Accessibility & Reasonable Accommodations

The Novartis Group of Companies are committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If, because of a medical condition or disability, you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process, or to perform the essential functions of a position, please send an e-mail to [email protected] or call [phone] and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information. Please include the job requisition number in your message.