Senior Director, AI Transformation

Avalere Health; Washington (District of Columbia); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401K with employer match

Life and disability insurance

Medical, dental, and vision plans

Flexible/hybrid/remote work

Generous vacation

Job summary

Avalere Health in Washington, DC is seeking a Senior Director, AI Transformation to lead a strategic pharma client's AI program, bridging client leadership with Avalere teams to turn ambitions into governed, measurable solutions.

You will mobilize cross-functional teams, guide end-to-end delivery from prototype to production, and drive adoption, governance, and value realization across the engagement while maintaining executive credibility.

Qualifications

• Senior leadership experience in transformation, consulting, digital product, or client leadership (12+ years).
• Executive credibility with senior pharma/LS leaders.
• Enterprise AI delivery from discovery to adopted workflows.
• Applied AI fluency: LLMs, agent workflows, data integration, safety.
• Transformation: process mapping, operating-model change, adoption, benefits realization.
• Excellent communication and executive presentation skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead client AI strategy and roadmap aligned to commercial, medical and operational priorities.
• Shape opportunities via workshops, interviews, and workflow reviews to uncover needs.
• Coordinate cross-functional teams to deliver end-to-end AI solutions from prototype to production.
• Establish governance, playbooks, and measurement of value realization.
• Expand the client engagement through evidence-based outcomes and strong relationships.

Skills

Senior leadership experience

Executive client credibility

Enterprise AI delivery

Applied AI fluency

Transformation expertise

Communication and judgement

Job description

About Avalere Health

United by one profound purpose: to reach

United by one profound purpose: to reach EVERY PATIENT POSSIBLE. At Avalere Health, we ensure every patient is identified, treated, supported, and cared for. Equally. Our Advisory, Medical, and Marketing teams come together - powerfully and intentionally - to forge unconventional connections, building a future where healthcare is not a barrier and no patient is left behind.

Achieving our mission starts with providing enriching, purpose-driven careers for our team that empower them to make a tangible impact on patient lives. We are committed to creating a culture where our employees are empowered to bring their whole selves to work and tap into the power of diverse backgrounds and skillsets to play a part in making a difference for every patient, everywhere.

Our flexible approach to working allows our global teams to decide where they want to work, whether in-office or at home based on team and client need. Major city hubs in London, Manchester, Washington, D.C., and New York, and smaller offices globally, serve as collaboration hubs allowing our teams to come together when it matters. Homeworkers are equally supported, with dedicated social opportunities and resources.

Our inclusive culture is at the heart of everything we do. We proudly support our employees in bringing their whole selves to work with our six Employee Network Groups - Diverse Ability, Family, Gender, LGBTQ+, Mental Health, and Race/Ethnicity. These groups provide opportunities to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion and to connect, learn, and socialise through regular meetings and programs of activity. We are an accredited Fertility Friendly employer with our Fertility Policy, enhanced parental leave, and culture of flexibility ensuring every employee feels supported across their family planning journey and can work in a way that suits their family’s needs.

We are deeply invested in supporting professional growth for our employees through day-to-day career experiences, access to thousands of on-demand training sessions, regular career conversations, and the opportunity for global, cross-capability career moves.

We take pride in being part of the Disability Confident Scheme. This helps make sure you can be interviewed fairly if you have a disability, long term health condition, or are neurodiverse. If you'd like to apply and need adjustments made, you can let us know in your application.

The Role

The Senior Director, AI Transformation is a client-dedicated leadership role responsible for turning one strategic pharma client’s AI ambitions into adopted, governed and measurable solutions. Acting as the bridge between the client, the Avalere Health account team and the Co-Intelligence Centre, this person will combine executive client partnership, AI strategy, workflow transformation, change leadership and value realization.

The successful candidate will be credible with senior pharma leaders and technically fluent enough to guide solution design, evaluation, integration and governance. They will not be expected to personally engineer every solution. Their role is to mobilize the right teams, maintain momentum and ensure the work creates lasting client value.

What You'll Do

Client strategy and partnership

• Serve as a trusted adviser. Build strong relationships with senior client stakeholders and help them make practical choices about AI priorities, investment, sequencing and risk.
• Lead the roadmap . Develop and maintain a joint AI transformation roadmap aligned to the client’s commercial, medical and operational priorities.
• Create alignment. Establish clear decision pathways, governance forums and executive reporting across the AI portfolio.

Opportunity discovery and solution shaping

• Identify high-value opportunities. Lead workshops, interviews and workflow reviews to uncover priority business problems and unmet needs.
• Define and document the work. Turn client challenges into solution briefs, scopes of work, delivery plans and technically actionable requirements, including user stories, epics, tickets, acceptance criteria, assumptions, dependencies, milestones and resourcing needs.
• Prioritise the portfolio. Assess opportunities based on strategic value, feasibility, readiness, risk, adoption effort and time to value.

Delivery and transformation

• Mobilize cross-functional teams. Bring together AI Solutions Engineers, product, data, domain and client specialists around each priority use case.
• Guide delivery end to end. Oversee work from prototype and pilot through evaluation, production, launch and handover.
• Redesign the work. Define future-state workflows, roles, controls and handoffs so AI becomes part of day-to-day practice.

Adoption, governance and value

• Build adoption. Create role-based playbooks, training, champions, office hours and feedback loops with client change and learning teams.
• Enable responsible use. Partner with AI, IT, security, legal, privacy, medical, regulatory and MLR stakeholders to embed appropriate guardrails and human oversight.
• Prove the impact. Set baselines and track adoption, efficiency, capacity, quality, client outcomes and commercial value, using the evidence to improve and scale the work.

Account growth

• Deepen the partnership. Use delivered value to strengthen executive relationships and identify opportunities to expand the client’s engagement with Avalere Health.
• Strengthen the story. Equip the account team with a consistent, evidence-based narrative about Avalere Health’s AI capability and impact.
• Capture reusable learning. Develop playbooks and patterns that improve delivery while protecting client confidentiality.

Essential

About You

• Senior leadership experience. Typically 12 or more years in transformation, consulting, digital product, innovation or client leadership, including significant experience in pharma or life sciences.
• Executive client credibility. A strong record of advising and influencing senior leaders in complex, matrixed organizations .
• Enterprise AI delivery. Experience moving AI, analytics or automation from discovery and pilot into adopted, governed workflows.
• Applied AI fluency. Practical understanding of large language models, agent workflows, model evaluation, data and integration requirements, safety and reliability.
• Transformation expertise . Strong capability in process mapping, workflow redesign, operating -model change, adoption, enablement and benefits realization .
• Communication and judgement. Excellent facilitation, writing and executive presentation skills, with the ability to make complex choices clear and actionable.

Desirable

• Cross-functional pharma knowledge. Experience across Medical, Commercial, Market Access, Insights and Content Operations .
• Regulated delivery. Familiarity with responsible AI, privacy, medical and regulatory review, MLR and common life-sciences platforms.
• Product and capability building. Experience shaping prototypes, evaluating model outputs and creating playbooks, champions networks or communities of practice.

Ways of working

• Client dedicated. The role is fully allocated to one strategic pharma client, providing continuity and a deep understanding of its priorities, systems and ways of working.
• Matrix leadership. The Senior Director works closely with the Global Client Lead and Co-Intelligence Centre, leading through influence across Avalere Health and client teams.
• Flexible and connected. The role may be remote or hybrid and requires regular travel to client and team meetings.

$140,000 - $180,000 a year

What We Can Offer

You will receive a 401K plan with an employer match contribution up to 4% (immediately vested), as well as life insurance, disability coverage, and medical, dental, and vision plans for peace of mind. Enjoy flexible working arrangements, including hybrid and remote work, along with the option to work from anywhere across the globe two weeks each year. We provide 20 vacation days plus one personal well-being day, recognise 9 public holidays, along with gifted end-of-year holidays and an early Summer Friday finish in June, July, and August.

We may use AI tools to support elements of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing CV/resumes, assessing responses, or transcribing interviews. These tools assist our Talent team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please review our candidate privacy policy.