Director, Portfolio & Transformation — AI Strategy Lead

AstraZeneca; Cambridge (MA); Hybrid; USD 159,000 - 239,000; Full time

Job summary

AstraZeneca in Cambridge, MA is seeking a senior leader to shape how scientific capacity is allocated across therapy areas and to drive strategic transformation, including AI initiatives. You will partner with BE and OTD leadership to balance portfolio decisions with capacity.

You will lead cross-functional projects end-to-end, maintain governance, and prepare executive-ready materials while advancing a data-driven culture across the organization.

Qualifications

• A track record of running resource allocation, portfolio prioritization or capacity planning processes that senior leaders relied on to make decisions.
• Has led to strategic projects from problem framing to implementation, working directly with senior collaborators.
• Has led a cross-functional transformation program and aligned senior leaders without direct authority.
• Confident with capacity and financial data, with close attention to detail on forecasts, budgets and variances.
• Turns complex information into clear recommendations and presents them with confidence to senior leadership.
• Builds trust: an active listener with cultural sensitivity, discretion with confidential information, and a commitment to AstraZeneca’s values.
• Works well with ambiguity and pace, acts without complete information, and adapts as priorities change.

Responsibilities

• Portfolio resource allocation and decision-making
• Run the resource allocation process with leadership teams and therapy area representatives, starting in BE, with scope to extend across the wider organization over time.
• Partner with the teams that produce resourcing actuals to improve existing reports, put the numbers in context, and turn them into inputs for decisions, so that allocation is decided rather than left to drift.
• Ensure new work starts only where capacity exists or a named release is agreed, and that work is slowed or stopped through scheduled reviews and clear triggers, in partnership with the leaders who own those decisions.
• Keep a clear record of allocation decisions and their expected effect on capacity and check the delivered effect against actuals.
• Evolve the methodology, rules and forums as needs change and adapt them as new parts of the organization come into scope.
• Lead high-impact strategic projects for the leadership teams of BE and OTD, from framing the question through to recommendation and implementation.
• Drive delivery of AI transformation programs: turn ambition into a clear roadmap, and set up the governance, cadence and reporting that keep it on track.
• Bring senior leaders across departments behind shared priorities, and resolve interdependencies, resourcing questions and decisions as they arise.
• Projects may also include operating model and organizational design choices, evaluating new capabilities and technology platforms, building investment cases, and portfolio and competitive analyses that inform where to focus.
• Track delivery and value against agreed objectives, connect initiatives to portfolio and resourcing plans, and bring risks and decisions to sponsors early.
• Assemble and lead cross-functional project teams and develop the people in them.
• Build outcomes into ongoing ways of working and help what works spread across the wider organization.
• Shape the governance cadence of the leadership teams you support agendas, pre-reads, and decisions and actions followed through to completion.
• Track and report progress against goals and scorecard critical metrics, and flag risks to delivery early.
• Own recurring operating processes end to end, so they run reliably without critical issue, and keep simplifying them.
• Prepare executive-ready materials for senior leadership.
• Partner with Finance, Portfolio and Capacity Management, HR and Communications to keep portfolio, resourcing and headcount views aligned.
• Support internal communications and organizational effectiveness priorities, including engagement and employee feedback, and turn themes into actions.

Skills

Resource allocation

Portfolio prioritization

Capacity planning

Strategic project leadership

Cross-functional leadership

Data-driven decision making

Communication to senior leadership

Adaptability under ambiguity

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree or MBA

Job description

AstraZeneca in Cambridge, MA is seeking a senior leader to shape how scientific capacity is allocated across therapy areas and to drive strategic transformation, including AI initiatives. You will partner with BE and OTD leadership to balance portfolio decisions with capacity.

You will lead cross-functional projects end-to-end, maintain governance, and prepare executive-ready materials while advancing a data-driven culture across the organization.