Associate Director, Strategy Realization & Transformation Enablement

Socket.dev; North Wales (Montgomery County); Hybrid; USD 142,000 - 224,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Vision insurance

Dental insurance

401(k)

Paid holidays

Vacation

Sick days

Job summary

Merck & Co., Inc. in Rahway, NJ, invites applications for an Associate Director, Strategy Realization & Transformation Enablement.

You will drive governance and execution of the transformation program, turning priorities into actionable roadmaps with measurable outcomes. Reporting to the Transformation Management Office, you will partner with senior leaders to align workstreams, manage dependencies, and deliver value through disciplined planning, executive communications, and adoption of new

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree required.
• Master’s Degree preferred.
• 7+ years of professional work experience.
• Proven professional knowledge and experience in Program Management and Project Management.
• Ability to operate effectively in ambiguous, fast-paced environments.
• Demonstrated ability to work in a team environment to advance a common goal.
• Experience with agile ways of working and test-and-learn approaches.
• Strong stakeholder management and executive communication skills.
• Analytical mindset with ability to translate data into actionable insights.
• Demonstrated experience leading and managing complex, cross-functional projects.

Responsibilities

• Lead planning and coordination for complex transformation initiatives, ensuring workstreams are organized around clear objectives, milestones, timelines, dependencies, and outcomes.
• Translate strategic priorities into practical execution plans, integrated roadmaps, and governance-ready materials.
• Support transformation design and mobilization by helping define scope, ways of working, stakeholder alignment, meeting cadences, and operating rhythms.
• Establish and support governance forums, sponsor updates, leadership reviews, decision logs, escalation paths, and accountability mechanisms.
• Prepare executive-level materials that summarize progress, risks, decisions, tradeoffs, dependencies, and areas requiring leadership attention.
• Act as an integrator across workstreams, capabilities, functions, and programs to ensure transformation initiatives are connected, sequenced, and aligned to broader goals.
• Identify and manage cross-program dependencies, sequencing considerations, capacity constraints, risks, and prioritization needs.
• Maintain integrated plans, RAID logs, milestone trackers, dependency maps, status reports, and leadership dashboards.
• Define, track, and report progress against transformation objectives, milestones, KPIs, adoption measures, and expected business outcomes.
• Partner with change management teams to monitor readiness, stakeholder engagement, adoption risks, and organizational capacity to absorb change.
• Develop clear, concise, leadership-ready communications that connect transformation activity to strategy, outcomes, decisions, and value.
• Help mature the TMO from program coordination toward portfolio orchestration, strategy realization, value insight, and executive decision enablement.

Skills

Program management

Project management

Ambiguity management

Executive communication

Stakeholder management

Data-driven decisions

Cross-functional collaboration

Agile methodologies

Team leadership

Strategic thinking

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree

Job description

Job Description

Associate Director, Strategy Realization & Transformation Enablement

The Associate Director, Strategy Realization & Transformation Enablement is responsible for supporting TMO governance of the overall transformation program, helping ensure strategic priorities are translated into actionable plans, integrated roadmaps, disciplined execution rhythms, and measurable business outcomes. Operating within the Transformation Management Office (TMO), this role helps turn strategic priorities into aligned transformation work, disciplined governance, clear leadership visibility, coordinated dependencies, tracked milestones and outcomes, and measurable value realization.

This role sits at the intersection of strategy, program management, operating model transformation, and executive enablement. The Associate Director will partner with senior leaders, capability owners, functional teams, project leads, and change partners to ensure transformation work is organized, governed, sequenced, communicated, and progressing against agreed objectives.

The role requires strong judgment, executive communication, cross-functional influence, and the ability to bring structure to ambiguity while helping the organization stay focused on outcomes, value realization, and sustained adoption of new ways of working.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead planning and coordination for complex transformation initiatives, ensuring workstreams are organized around clear objectives, milestones, timelines, dependencies, and outcomes.
• Translate strategic priorities into practical execution plans, integrated roadmaps, and governance-ready materials.
• Support transformation design and mobilization by helping define scope, ways of working, stakeholder alignment, meeting cadences, and operating rhythms.
• Establish and support governance forums, sponsor updates, leadership reviews, decision logs, escalation paths, and accountability mechanisms.
• Prepare executive-level materials that summarize progress, risks, decisions, tradeoffs, dependencies, and areas requiring leadership attention.
• Act as an integrator across workstreams, capabilities, functions, and programs to ensure transformation initiatives are connected, sequenced, and aligned to broader goals.
• Identify and manage cross-program dependencies, sequencing considerations, capacity constraints, risks, and prioritization needs.
• Maintain integrated plans, RAID logs, milestone trackers, dependency maps, status reports, and leadership dashboards.
• Define, track, and report progress against transformation objectives, milestones, KPIs, adoption measures, and expected business outcomes.
• Partner with change management teams to monitor readiness, stakeholder engagement, adoption risks, and organizational capacity to absorb change.
• Develop clear, concise, leadership-ready communications that connect transformation activity to strategy, outcomes, decisions, and value.
• Help mature the TMO from program coordination toward portfolio orchestration, strategy realization, value insight, and executive decision enablement.

Qualifications

Education Minimum Requirement

• Bachelor’s Degree required.
• Master’s Degree preferred.

Required Experience and Skills

• 7+ years of professional work experience.
• Proven professional knowledge and experience in Program Management and Project Management.
• Ability to operate effectively in ambiguous, fast-paced environments.
• Demonstrated ability to work in a team environment to advance a common goal.
• Experience with agile ways of working and test-and-learn approaches.
• Strong stakeholder management and executive communication skills.
• Analytical mindset with ability to translate data into actionable insights.
• Demonstrated experience leading and managing complex, cross-functional projects.

Preferred Experience and Skills

• 3+ years of commercial experience, ideally in marketing/promotions, commercial operations, or sales.
• Consulting or client services experience.
• Experience with digital, AI, or data-driven transformation preferred.

Ability to Coordinate, Ability to Coordinate, Adaptability, Agile Project Management, Business Agility, Business Alignment, Business Consulting Services, Business Decisions, Change Management, Data-Driven Decision Making, Developing Proposals, Digital Transformation, Employee Performance Evaluations, Environmental Scanning, Executive Presence, Executive Reports, Feasibility Studies, Management Consulting, Managing Ambiguity, Market Research, Pharmaceutical Market, Portfolio Management, Progress Monitoring, Project Management, Resource Allocation {+ 9 more}

The salary range for this role is

$142,400.00 - $224,100.00

The successful candidate will be eligible for annual bonus and long-term incentive, if applicable.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits. Available benefits include medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, including 401(k), paid holidays, vacation, and compassionate and sick days. More information about benefits is available at https://jobs.merck.com/us/en/compensation-and-benefits

San Francisco Residents Only:

We will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment in compliance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance

Los Angeles Residents Only:

We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance

Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully

Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company. No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails.

Employee Status:

Regular

Relocation:

No relocation

VISA Sponsorship:

No

Travel Requirements:

10%

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Hybrid

Shift:

Not Indicated

Valid Driving License:

No

Hazardous Material(s):

N/A

Job Posting End Date:

09/9/2026

*A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFOREthe listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.