Director, Central Lab Alliance Lead
GlaxoSmithKline
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Benefits offered by this job
Job summary
GlaxoSmithKline seeks an experienced Director, Central Lab Alliance Lead to oversee strategic partnerships with central laboratories while ensuring day-to-day delivery and governance. The role blends strategy with hands-on partnership governance and continuous improvement to support study delivery across pipelines.
You will embed a new operating model, monitor portfolio demand, and coordinate leadership-level forums.
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in a life science, medicine, pharmacy or related discipline.
- Experience in clinical trials with central laboratory operations and study delivery.
- Direct experience as an alliance lead or in external partner management.
- Strong stakeholder and relationship-management across cross-functional, multicultural environments.
- Excellent communication, including presenting to large audiences and handling high-pressure situations.
- Experience managing escalations and delivering under patient or study impact risk.
- Strong analytical capability using AI tools (e.g., Claude) to analyze large datasets and generate insights.
- Ability to interpret KPIs and trends and translate data into recommendations for ops teams and senior leaders.
- Strong planning, prioritisation and organisational skills with competing priorities.
- Fluent English communication, travel within UK/Europe.
Responsibilities
- Act as the alliance lead and primary relationship owner for an established central lab partner.
- Contribute to strategic direction, monitor future portfolio demand, translate into priorities.
- Embed a new operating model and drive process improvements post-implementation.
- Lead and coordinate governance meetings, prepare materials on partnership health and study delivery.
- Monitor KPIs and use data to provide insight into performance, assay usage and kit usage.
- Maintain regular interaction with the central lab partner and communicate developments to stakeholders.
- Escalate and resolve critical delivery, quality or operational challenges with internal teams and partners.
- Help manage urgent situations to prevent patient or study impact.
- Use AI tools to analyse data and generate insights for decisions and improvement.
- Promote harmonised ways of working across partnerships while accommodating tailored approaches.
Skills
Education
Job description
We create a place where people can grow, be their best, be safe, and feel welcome, valued and included. We offer a competitive salary, an annual bonus based on company performance, healthcare and wellbeing programmes, pension plan membership, and shares and savings programme.
We embrace modern work practises; our Performance with Choice programme offers a hybrid working model, empowering you to find the optimal balance between remote and in-office work.
Discover more about our company wide benefits and life at GSK on our webpage Life at GSK | GSK
Are you an experienced central laboratory alliance leader, central lab operations expert or biosampling strategist who can combine forward-looking strategy with hands‑on partnership governance? This individual-contributor role will provide strategic oversight for one of GSK's established central laboratory partnerships, helping to shape the future direction of the relationship while ensuring strong day‑to‑day delivery.
The role is approximately balanced between strategy and delivery. You will help embed a new operating model and ways of working, anticipate changing portfolio demands, identify opportunities for continuous improvement, and ensure that GSK and its central laboratory partner are positioned to respond effectively. Alongside this, you will manage governance forums, monitor partnership health and study delivery, and support the resolution of urgent operational challenges.
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 Cambridge, UK. The location of this role will therefore subsequently change to Cambridge, UK in accordance with timelines to be set by the Company. The relocation is currently proposed to take effect by early 2029.
- Act as the alliance lead and primary relationship owner for an assigned, established central laboratory partner, building a trusted and collaborative partnership.
- Contribute to the strategic direction of the central laboratory relationship, monitoring future portfolio demand and translating it into practical partnership priorities.
- Play a central role in embedding a new operating model and new ways of working, while continuing to identify process improvements after implementation.
- Lead and coordinate governance meetings, preparing clear materials for senior leaders on partnership health, study delivery, risks and priorities.
- Monitor KPIs, identify trends and use data to provide insight into performance, , assay usage and kit usage.
- Maintain regular interaction with the central laboratory partner and communicate relevant developments, risks and issues across GSK operational stakeholders.
- Support the timely escalation and resolution of critical delivery, quality or operational challenges, working calmly and constructively with internal teams and outsourced partners.
- Help manage urgent situations before they become crises, recognising the potential impact of delivery challenges on patients and clinical studies.
- Use AI tools, such as Claude or equivalent AI agents, to help analyse large datasets and generate insights that support decisions and continuous improvement.
- Promote harmonised ways of working across central laboratory partnerships while recognising that each partner relationship may require a tailored approach.
- A healthy, trusted and transparent relationship with the assigned central laboratory partner.
- Successful implementation and adoption of a new operating model and associated ways of working.
- Effective governance, clear escalation routes and timely resolution of delivery issues.
- Meaningful insight from partnership data and KPIs, enabling informed decisions and proactive improvement.
- Readiness for changing portfolio demands, with the central laboratory partner aligned to future needs.
- Bachelor's degree in a life science, medicine, pharmacy or a related discipline.
- Experience working in clinical trials, with direct knowledge of central laboratory operations and how central laboratories support study delivery.
- Demonstrated experience in an alliance lead, strategic partnership or comparable external partner-management role.
- Strong stakeholder and relationship-management skills, with the ability to work across complex, cross-functional and multicultural environments.
- Excellent communication skills, including confidence presenting to large audiences and the ability to communicate calmly and constructively during urgent or high‑pressure situations.
- Experience managing escalations, resolving complex delivery challenges and maintaining a level‑headed approach where patient or study impact may be at risk.
- Strong analytical capability, including experience using an AI agent such as Claude, or an equivalent tool, to help analyse large datasets and draw actionable insights.
- Ability to interpret KPIs and trends and translate data into clear recommendations for operational teams and senior leaders.
- Strong planning, prioritisation and organisational skills, with the ability to manage competing priorities and deadlines.
- Excellent oral and written communication skills in English.
- Flexibility for occasional travel, mainly within the UK and Europe.
- Experience implementing a new operating model or embedding new ways of working across an external partnership.
- Experience within a large pharmaceutical organisation and an understanding of pharmaceutical development operations.
- A strategic and forward‑looking mindset, with the ability to anticipate changing demand and identify opportunities for continuous improvement.
- High levels of professionalism, integrity and collaboration in a regulated environment.
#LI-GSK #LI-Hybrid
At GSK, we have bold ambitions for patients, aiming to positively impact the health of 2.5 billion people by the end of the decade. Our R&D focuses on discovering and delivering vaccines and medicines, combining our understanding of the immune system with cutting‑edge technology to transform people's lives.GSK fosters a culture ambitious for patients, accountable for impact, and committed to doing the right thing, making sure that we focus our efforts on accelerating significant assets that meet patients' needs and have the highest probability of success. We're uniting science, technology, and talent to get ahead of disease together.
Find out more:
Our approach to R&D
Agile Thinking, Business Acumen, Clinical Development, Clinical Trial Designs, Communication, Creativity, Decision Making, Fostering Collaboration, Good Clinical Practice (GCP), Influencing Without Authority, People Management, Pharmaceutical Industry, Project Management
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.
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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
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