Director R&D EHS Program Lead

Pfizer; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Pfizer seeks a Director, R&D EHS Program Lead to act as the GWE R&D principal for industrial hygiene and EH&S across research operations. You will lead the global EH&S Community of Practice, influence senior stakeholders, and deliver portfolio-wide performance insights to enable safe, compliant, and efficient research.

Reporting to the Sr. Director, this role anchors technical authority in IH, designs exposure-assessment programs, oversees containment strategies, and shapes

Qualifications

• IH and EH&S expertise across R&D environments.
• Experience leading cross-site communities of practice.
• Experience with exposure monitoring and risk-based decision making.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the principal industrial-hygiene authority for GWE R&D, leading exposure recognition, evaluation and control across sites.
• Lead global EH&S Community of Practice and drive consistent, outcome-focused standards and governance.
• Design and govern exposure-assessment programs (air, surface, personal monitoring) and interpret against OELs/OEBs.
• Lead hazard control for potent compounds and novel molecules, defining containment strategies and PPE.
• Provide technical oversight of ventilation, fume hoods, isolators and containment systems; sign-off for labs and pilot ops.
• Advise on IH risk methodologies and partner with SEO to standardize tools and documentation.
• Ensure lab safety program consistency across GWE with differentiation by lab type.
• Partner with enterprise policies to align EH&S standards with R&D needs.

Skills

Industrial hygiene

Leadership

EH&S knowledge

Exposure assessment

Risk assessment

Stakeholder management

Job description

ROLE SUMMARY

The Director, R&D EHS Program Lead serves as the GWE R&D principal leader in industrial hygiene and the broader Environmental, Health & Safety (EH&S) disciplines as it pertains to the support of research operations. Reporting to the Sr. Director, R&D and Capital Strategy Lead this role enables industrial-hygiene expertise. Anchored in this technical authority, this role leads and moderates a global EH&S Community of Practice (CoP), serves as R&D's lead voice to the enterprise EH&S organization, and establishes the above-site reporting and metrics that give leadership a single, portfolio-wide view of R&D EH&S performance. Influencing and aligning senior stakeholders across GWE, Research and the enterprise Safety, Environmental & Operations (SEO) function, this role delivers Director-level impact principally through expertise and leadership of a community of EH&S professionals.

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

• Principal industrial-hygiene authority: serve as the technical subject matter leader for GWE R&D, leading the anticipation, recognition, evaluation and control of chemical, physical and biological exposure hazards across all sites.
• R&D Leadership Team membership: serve as an active member of the GWE R&D Leadership Team and an extended member of the Safety & Environmental Operations Leadership Team, driving transformative action to reduce EH&S risk and elevate performance consistently across the organization.
• Exposure-assessment program: design and govern qualitative and quantitative exposure-assessment programs - air, surface and personal monitoring, sampling strategies, and interpretation against occupational exposure limits (OELs) and occupational exposure bands (OEBs).
• Potent-compound & hazard control: lead hazard and control banding for potent compounds, high-hazard biologics/ADCs and novel molecules, defining containment strategies, engineering controls and PPE for the highest-hazard work.
• Engineering controls & containment verification: provide technical oversight of ventilation, fume hoods, isolators and containment systems, including performance verification and industrial-hygiene sign-off for laboratory and pilot operations.
• Risk Assessment expertise: support and implement industrial-hygiene risk-assessment methodologies in partnership with SEO and global policy and procedures, establishing one consistent toolset and documentation standard applied across all R&D sites.
• Laboratory Safety Program: Ensure consistent application of lab safety programs, developing a consistent GWE-wide approach for each laboratory environment, differentiating between analytical, chemistry, biological, etc., laboratories.
• Community of Practice leadership: lead and manage a global R&D EH&S Community of Practice of 10-12 discipline experts (industrial hygiene, biological safety & containment, process/contractor safety, and EH&S management systems); set priorities and deliverables and drive consistent, outcome-focused standards, tools and best practices.
• Enterprise EH&S liaison & governance: serve as GWE R&D's representation in the enterprise programs, shaping enterprise policies, standards, reporting and tools - with particular focus on industrial-hygiene standards - so they are fit-for-purpose for R&D, and securing governance and decision rights on R&D's behalf.
• EH&S governance & risk registers: lead and sustain site-level EH&S risk registers, rolling up location-based input into a network-wide, forward-looking view of the state of control; establish action plans in response to emerging trends and risk signals, escalating as needed to secure alignment and accelerate resolution.
• Science-line partnership & risk enablement: advise senior scientific and operational leaders on practical, IH-based solutions, exercising independent judgment to balance exposure risk with business needs and aligning stakeholders across Workplace Experience, Research and site operations.
• Performance reporting & metrics: establish and deliver portfolio-level visibility of EH&S and industrial-hygiene performance - exposure trends and leading/lagging indicators - informing executive decisions and driving continuous improvement.
• AI Implementation: Explore opportunities for AI to assist with EHS processes, risk assessments, change control, and metrics, and implement GWE-wide solutions.
• Incident investigation & lessons learned: manage the escalation process for significant EH&S events or compliance issues, lead root-cause investigations, and communicate lessons learned to drive improvement across the R&D network.
• Enterprise representation - vendor program & BD/M&A: represent Global Workplace Experience/R&D as decision partner for EH&S service and vendor programs (e.g., IH monitoring services, waste management) in support of enterprise procurement savings; lead EH&S/IH due diligence for business development and M&A activity to anticipate exposure gaps and remediation needs before they impact R&D.
• Talent & capability development: leve