Director, Commercial Data Innovation & Strategy

Taylor Strategy Partners; Princeton (NJ); On-site; USD 220,000 - 235,000; Full time

Job summary

Ascendis Pharma is seeking a Director-level leader to own Commercial Data Strategy, governance, and AI-enabled decision support across sales, marketing, and field operations. The role partners with Analytics, IT, Compliance, and external partners to translate business priorities into practical capabilities.

The ideal candidate has 10+ years in commercial pharma, strong data governance experience, and a track record of leading CRM initiatives and AI adoption in a regulated environment.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in pharmaceutical Commercial Operations, Sales Operations, or related fields.
• Demonstrated success leading data governance, CRM ownership, and data quality initiatives.
• Proven ability to influence and align stakeholders across Commercial, Medical Affairs, Market Access, and external partners.

Responsibilities

• Define and lead the commercial data strategy, governance, and roadmap to support growth, launch readiness, and field execution.
• Translate priorities into data and decision-support needs with cross-functional partners.
• Lead adoption of Next Best Action, AI-enabled recommendations, and compliant automation.

Skills

Data strategy

Data governance

AI opportunities

CRM enablement

Stakeholder management

Change leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree

MBA

Tools

Veeva CRM

Salesforce

Job description

Description

The Director, Commercial Data Innovation & Strategy will lead the business strategy, governance, and adoption of data and AI-enabled capabilities that improve commercial performance, customer engagement, field effectiveness, and decision-making. This leader will serve as the Commercial Operations business owner for high-value data, CRM, Next Best Action, and AI initiatives, translating business priorities into practical capabilities in partnership with Commercial, Medical Affairs, Market Access, Patient Support, Analytics, IT, Compliance, and external partners.

Key Responsibilities:

Commercial Data Strategy & Business Enablement

• Lead the commercial data strategy and roadmap, ensuring priorities are aligned with growth objectives, launch readiness, customer engagement, and field execution.
• Translate Commercial, Medical Affairs, Market Access, and Patient Support priorities into clear data and decision-support needs.
• Create an integrated business view of customer, sales, payer, patient, claims, EMR, lab, specialty pharmacy, digital, and market data to support coordinated decision-making.
• Prioritize initiatives based on business value, customer impact, compliance, feasibility, and organizational readiness.
• Communicate the commercial data vision, priorities, dependencies, risks, and business outcomes to senior leaders and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Represent Commercial Operations and Data Strategy in governance forums, steering committees, and cross-functional working teams.

AI, Next Best Action & Decision Enablement

• Identify and prioritize high-value AI and automation opportunities across Sales, Medical Affairs, Market Access, Patient Support, and Commercial Analytics and Operations.
• Lead the business design and adoption of Next Best Action and recommendation capabilities that help teams determine the right customer, action, message, channel, and timing.
• Define business objectives, success measures, governance expectations, and adoption plans for AI-enabled capabilities in partnership with Analytics, IT, Compliance, and business stakeholders.
• Pilot responsible, compliant, and explainable use of AI while ensuring solutions address meaningful business needs.
• Monitor emerging practices in AI, customer engagement, and commercial excellence and assess their relevance to the organization.

Data Governance, Quality & Business Stewardship

• Lead commercial data governance and stewardship to improve the quality, consistency, usability, and reliability of data used by customer-facing teams and leadership.
• Establish business definitions, ownership, quality standards, hierarchies, and decision rights for customer, account, territory, product, payer, patient, sales, and other commercial data.
• Partner with business stakeholders and enabling functions to identify data issues, clarify business impact, and drive sustainable resolution and process improvement.
• Ensure governance supports accurate reporting, targeting, segmentation, field execution, customer engagement, and leadership decision-making.
• Maintain effective documentation, issue management, controls, and monitoring to support privacy, compliance, and audit readiness.

CRM & Customer Engagement Enablement

• Serve as the Commercial Operations business owner for CRM and related customer engagement capabilities, with accountability for business priorities, field usability, adoption, and value realization.
• Guide customer strategy and field processes including targeting, segmentation, affiliations, territory alignment, call planning, engagement tracking, and customer master data.
• Gather and prioritize business requirements, align stakeholders on trade-offs, and guide enhancement roadmaps in partnership with IT and external partners.
• Embed Next Best Action, Customer Insights, and AI-enabled recommendations into practical field and customer-facing workflows.
• Drive adoption through stakeholder engagement, communications, training, change leadership, and ongoing feedback.

Strategic Partnerships, Investment & Roadmap Governance

• Manage strategic relationships with data, CRM, AI, and commercial operations partners, with clear accountability for business outcomes, service quality, deliverables, and issue resolution.
• Lead business cases, investment prioritization, budget planning, and roadmap decisions for commercial data and innovation initiatives.
• Establish measures for adoption, usability, service quality, operational effectiveness, customer impact, and value delivered.
• Balance competing priorities and focus resources on initiatives with the strongest business and customer impact.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives that advance commercial excellence, launch readiness, and scalable ways of working.

Key Business Objectives

• Enable commercial growth and launch readiness through a clear, business-led data strategy.
• Improve field effectiveness and customer engagement through trusted data, CRM optimization, Next Best Action, and AI-enabled decision support.
• Increase confidence in business decisions by strengthening data ownership, quality, governance, and usability.
• Reduce manual effort and fragmented processes through better operating practices, automation, and scalable business capabilities.
• Advance responsible and compliant AI adoption across Commercial, Medical Affairs, Market Access, and Patient Support.
• Strengthen collaboration across business functions, Analytics, IT, Compliance, and external partners.

Required Qualifications:

Education

• Bachelor's degree in business, Life Sciences, Economics, Marketing, Analytics, or related fields required.
• MBA or other relevant advanced degree preferred.
• Training or certification in commercial excellence, change management, process improvement, or project leadership preferred.

Experience

• 10+ years of progressive pharmaceutical or biotechnology experience, including substantial experience in Commercial Operations, Sales Operations, Customer Strategy, Field Enablement, Business Planning, Data Strategy, or Commercial Excellence.
• Demonstrated success using data, insights, business processes, and enabling tools to improve commercial performance, customer engagement, field execution, and decision-making.
• Strong experience leading commercial data governance, customer data ownership, data quality, and stewardship processes that support customer-facing teams.
• Experience serving as the business owner or strategic lead for CRM, customer engagement, targeting, segmentation, field execution, or adoption programs.
• Proven ability to influence and align stakeholders across Commercial, Medical Affairs, Market Access, Patient Support, Analytics, IT, Compliance, and external partners.
• Experience with pharmaceutical data assets including customer, sales, claims, specialty pharmacy, patient, payer, EMR, lab, wholesaler, and market intelligence data preferred.
• Experience managing strategic vendor relationships, budgets, business cases, and roadmaps in a pharmaceutical or biotechnology environment preferred.
• Experience applying AI, predictive insights, Next Best Action, omnichannel engagement, or automation to improve customer experience and field effectiveness preferred.
• Experience supporting product launches, market expansion, specialty pharmaceutical or rapidly scaling commercial organizations preferred.
• Proven track record leading cross-functional change and driving adoption of new business capabilities, processes, and tools.

Preferred Commercial Capabilities & Tools

• Commercial CRM and customer engagement platforms, including Veeva CRM, Salesforce, or comparable solutions.
• Customer master data, targeting, segmentation, affiliations, territory alignment, call planning
• Commercial data ecosystems spanning patient, sales, payer, claims, specialty pharmacy, hub, lab, EMR, customer, and market intelligence data.
• AI-enabled business capabilities, Next Best Action, customer engagement tools, recommendation capabilities, and decision support.
• Commercial data governance, stewardship, business process optimization, change leadership, and operating model design.
• Working knowledge of modern data and analytics environments to partner effectively with Analytics and IT

The annual base salary for this position is $220,000 – $235,000. Actual salary will vary based on various factors such as the candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies, and proficiency for the role. In addition, some positions may include a company car or car allowance and eligibility to earn commissions/bonus based on company and/or individual performance.

Ascendis Pharma is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.