Senior Director, Commercial Excellence

Summit Therapeutics; Princeton (NJ); On-site; USD 217,000 - 271,000; Full time

Job summary

Summit Therapeutics in Princeton, NJ is seeking a Senior Director of Commercial Excellence to lead HQ operations for Marketing, Market Access, Market Research, Finance, and Compliance. This role builds the backbone of Commercial Operations—people, processes, data, technology, training, reporting, and analytics—across primary commercial functions.

The successful candidate will drive strategy, governance, and operational excellence for the ivonescimab launch and future indications, leading a team

Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor's degree required; MBA or advanced degree preferred.
• Minimum of 12+ years of commercial or sales operations experience in pharma/biotech; field senior-level experience and product launch experience required.
• Specialized knowledge: CRM platforms, incentive compensation, commercial analytics; strong leadership and cross-functional skills.
• Travel: Approximately 25% domestic travel, including national and regional meetings.

Responsibilities

• Set the strategy, operating model, and annual plan for Commercial Operations.
• Own back­bone of operations: people, process, data, technology, training, reporting and analytics.
• Act as primary operational counterpart to Marketing, Market Access and Market Research.
• Lead Marketing Operations and oversee data/technology, including CRM and data requirements.
• Oversee commercial training, incentive design and governance, and territory design.
• Set field reporting standards and support Finance and Compliance.
• Lead, coach, and develop four direct reports; manage vendor relationships and budget.
• Ensure compliance with legal, regulatory, and quality standards.

Skills

CRM platforms

Incentive compensation modeling

Commercial analytics

Stakeholder management

Leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Project management

Oncology knowledge

Market dynamics understanding

Education

Bachelor's degree

MBA or advanced degree

Job description

Summit Therapeutics Inc. is a biopharmaceutical oncology company with a mission focused on improving quality of life, increasing potential duration of life, and resolving serious unmet medical needs. At Summit, we believe in building a team of world class professionals who are passionate about this mission, and it is our people who drive this mission to reality. Summit’s core values include integrity, passion for excellence, purposeful urgency, collaboration, and our commitment to people. Our employees are truly the heart and soul of our culture, and they are invaluable in shaping our journey toward excellence.

Summit’s team is inspired to touch and help change lives through Summit’s clinical studies in the field of oncology. Summit has multiple global Phase 3 clinical studies, including:

Non-small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC)

HARMONi: Phase 3 clinical study which was intended to evaluate ivonescimab combined with chemotherapy compared to placebo plus chemotherapy in patients with EGFR-mutated, locally advanced or metastatic non-squamous NSCLC who were previously treated with a 3rd generation EGFR TKI.

HARMONi-3: Phase 3 clinical study which is intended to evaluate ivonescimab combined with chemotherapy compared to pembrolizumab combined with chemotherapy in patients with first-line metastatic NSCLC.

HARMONi-7: Phase 3 clinical study which is intended to evaluate ivonescimab monotherapy compared to pembrolizumab monotherapy in patients with first-line metastatic NSCLC.

HARMONi-GI3: Phase 3 clinical study intended to evaluate ivonescimab in combination with chemotherapy compared with bevacizumab plus chemotherapy.

Ivonescimab is an investigational therapy not presently approved by any regulatory authority other than China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA). Summit is headquartered in Miami, Florida, and has additional offices in California, New Jersey, the UK, and Ireland.

Location: Princeton, NJ

Overview of Role:

The Senior Director, Commercial Excellence leads the headquarters side of Commercial Operations. This role builds and governs the systems, rules, and processes that Marketing, Market Access, Market Research, Finance, and Compliance all work from. This is the backbone of Commercial Operations: people, process, data, technology (the commercial systems the teams use), training, reporting, and analytics. That covers Marketing Operations, commercial data and technology, commercial training, incentive compensation, territory design, CRM, targeting and segmentation, roster management, and field reporting standards. The test for this role is simple: if the answer should be the same in every region, it belongs here. This leader is the single point of operational accountability for the function and partners with Field Excellence, which deploys this infrastructure as the dedicated operational partner to Sales. This role is also the functional partner for the Oncology Nurse Educators and Regional Marketing Directors, who report to Marketing, and the Field Reimbursement Managers, who report to Market Access. Ivonescimab is an intravenous, buy-and-bill oncology product, and Summit has not commercialized a product before, so this leader builds the function rather than inheriting it. This role does not carry a sales quota, does not receive territory-based sales incentive compensation, and does not conduct promotional activity with customers. This position reports to the Executive Director, Commercial Operations. Direct reports are the Director, Marketing Operations; Director, Commercial Data & Technology; Director, Commercial Excellence; and Director, Field Learning & Development.

Role and Responsibilities:

• Set the strategy, operating model, and annual plan for the function, built to support the ivonescimab launch, future indications, and the wider portfolio
• Own the backbone of Commercial Operations (people, process, data, commercial technology, training, reporting, and analytics), and make sure each one is built, governed, and working for every function that relies on it
• Serve as the primary operational counterpart to Marketing, Market Access, and Market Research, and resolve cross-functional operational conflicts before they reach the field
• Serve as the functional partner for the Oncology Nurse Educators and Regional Marketing Directors (reporting to Marketing) and the Field Reimbursement Managers (reporting to Market Access), so their work runs on the same systems, definitions, and processes as the rest of the organization
• Lead Marketing Operations through the Director, Marketing Operations, including promotional review workflow, material fulfillment, meetings and events, speaker programs, agency management, and budget
• Oversee commercial data and technology through the Director, Commercial Data & Technology, including commercial data strategy, customer master data, the data warehouse, third-party data contracting, and the commercial systems the teams use, such as CRM. Set the business requirements for those systems and partner with IT on delivery
• Oversee commercial training through the Director, Field Learning & Development, including training strategy, the launch training plan, the learning management system, and onboarding
• Lead, through the Director, Commercial Excellence, incentive compensation design and governance, territory design and change governance, CRM business requirements and administration, targeting and segmentation methodology, and roster management and goal setting, so each one is compliant, accurate, and consistent nationally
• Set field reporting standards, working from the metric definitions owned by the Director, Commercial Analytics & Information
• Support Finance and Compliance on process governance, audit readiness, and Sunshine Act reporting
• Partner with the National Senior Director, Field Excellence so field patterns come back to headquarters and get fixed once, nationally
• Manage vendor relationships across all four teams, and build and own the annual budget for the function
• Ensure compliance with legal, regulatory, and quality standards across all commercial operations activities
• Lead, coach, and develop the four direct reports
• All other duties as assigned

Experience, Education and Specialized Knowledge and Skills:

• Education: Bachelor's degree required. MBA or advanced degree preferred
• Minimum of 12+ years of commercial or sales operations experience in the pharmaceutical or biotechnology industry. Field experience at a senior level. Product launch experience required. Oncology experience preferred. Experience with buy-and-bill products and the data limitations that come with them preferred
• Specialized Knowledge and Skills: Deep understanding of market dynamics, data sources, field roles, and buying pathways, with oncology knowledge preferred. Detailed understanding of sales processes, sales data tracking, sales force automation, incentive compensation operations, and sales force alignments. Expertise in CRM platforms, incentive compensation modeling, and commercial analytics. Ability to develop and coach direct reports. Excellent verbal, written, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence and manage expectations with sales management and cross-functional teams. Strong leadership, cross-functional collaboration, and project management skills. Able to excel in fast-paced, high-growth biotechnology environments
• Travel: Approximately 25% domestic travel, including national and regional sales meetings

This is the pay for this position

Pay Transparency

$217,000 - $271,000 USD

Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skill set, depth of experience, certifications, and specific work location. This may be different in other locations due to differences in the cost of labor. The total compensation package for this position may also include bonus, stock, benefits and/or other applicable variable compensation.

Summit does not accept referrals from employment businesses and/or employment agencies in respect of the vacancies posted on this site. All employment businesses/agencies are required to contact Summit’s Talent Acquisition team at [e-mail] to obtain prior written authorization before referring any candidates to Summit.

Summit Therapeutics Inc.is an Equal Opportunity Employer and takes pride in creating and maintaining diverse environment. We do not discriminate in recruitment, hiring, training or promotion or any other employment practices for reasons of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, marital or veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.