Director, R&D Digital Enablement & AI Strategy

PDI; Woodcliff Lake (NJ); On-site; USD 190,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical coverage

Health Savings Account (HSA)

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

401(k) with company match

Job summary

PDI seeks a Director to lead R&D digital tools and AI enablement, building scalable, compliant systems that accelerate product development while preserving quality and regulatory compliance.

You will guide cross-functional teams across R&D, Quality, Regulatory, IT, and Operations to implement AI-driven workflows, governance, and documentation standards, improving visibility, decision quality, and cycle time.

Qualifications

• Record of building and implementing digital systems that materially improve technical operations, including AI/advanced analytics in development workflows.
• Familiarity with EHS, chemical compliance, and regulatory pathways.
• Core competencies: digital and systems leadership, change leadership and adoption, governance and compliance enablement, cross-functional influence, continuous improvement, and business and financial acumen.

Responsibilities

• Own the R&D digital enablement roadmap, deploying tools, platforms, templates, dashboards, and AI-enabled solutions that streamline product development, documentation, change control, data analysis, and reporting.
• Identify, prioritize, and scale high-value AI and advanced analytics use cases that shorten development timelines, strengthen technical decisions and risk identification, and reduce manual effort.
• Embed intuitive, scalable tools in standard R&D workflows and serve as R&D's primary partner to IT and external vendors for development and optimization.

Skills

Stakeholder management

Program leadership

Digital enablement

Data governance

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

MS degree in Engineering/related fields

Advanced degree preferred (PhD/MBA)

Job description

PDI seeks a Director to lead R&D digital tools and AI enablement, building scalable, compliant systems that accelerate product development while preserving quality and regulatory compliance.

You will guide cross-functional teams across R&D, Quality, Regulatory, IT, and Operations to implement AI-driven workflows, governance, and documentation standards, improving visibility, decision quality, and cycle time.