Commercial Excellence PM Lead

DePuy Synthes is recruiting for a Senior Manager, Digital & Commercial Excellence PM Lead, Orthopaedics, located in

Raynham, MA OR New Brunswick NJ OR West Chester PA OR Palm Beach Garden FL

Position Summary 

The Senior Manager, Digital & Commercial Excellence Project Management (PM) Lead will serve as the founding leader of the DePuy Synthes Process & Systems (DSPS) capability, a cross-functional, data-driven system for optimizing commercial processes to drive enterprise performance. Inspired by world-class operational excellence models, this role represents a deliberate incubation of a continuous improvement capability within DePuy Synthes. The intent is to prove the model at focused scale and, if successful, expand it into a broader enterprise function over time. 

Reporting into the Head of Global Digital Experience & Commercial PMO, this leader will operate as a hands-on program manager, lean facilitator, and internal consultant -- simultaneously standing up the DePuy Synthes Systems & Process (DSPS) operating model while directly driving a portfolio of high-priority commercial process improvement initiatives across the business. 

In addition to the DSPS portfolio, this role will serve as the operating backbone of the Digital & Digital & Commercial Excellence Leadership Team (DCELT) itself, owning the design and management of the DCELT's meeting structure, cadence, agenda governance, and operating rhythm to ensure the senior-most commercial leaders are working together effectively, making decisions efficiently, and maintaining accountability for strategic priorities. This dual mandate--enabling both the leadership team's effectiveness and the enterprise's process improvement engine--positions this role as a critical connective point between commercial strategy and operational execution. 

In addition, this role will serve as a structured facilitator for evaluating external innovation opportunities and emerging market models, ensuring the organization applies the same rigor and data-driven discipline to 'build vs. buy vs. partner' decisions and go-to-market model evolution as it does to internal process improvement. 

This is not a traditional PMO role. It requires someone who can architect a leadership operating model, facilitate structured problem-solving workshops, apply lean and Six Sigma methodologies in real business contexts, build credibility through early wins, and create the governance scaffolding that allows this capability to scale. The successful candidate will be comfortable operating with ambiguity, building from the ground up, and influencing senior leaders without direct authority, while maintaining the rigor and discipline required to sustain measurable impact. 

Key Responsibilities 

Digital & Commercial Excellence Leadership Team Operating Rhythm & Effectiveness 

Design, implement, and continuously refine the Digital & Commercial Excellence Leadership Team's meeting structure, including recurring cadences (e.g., weekly, monthly, quarterly), agenda frameworks, decision-rights protocols, and pre-read/follow-up disciplines. 

Serve as the DCELT's operating manager--owning agenda development, ensuring topics are strategically prioritized, tracking action items and decisions to closure, and holding the team accountable to commitments made in-session. 

Establish and maintain a DCELT annual operating calendar that integrates strategic planning cycles, business reviews, DSPS sponsor reviews, and key enterprise milestones into a coherent rhythm. 

Develop and enforce meeting effectiveness standards, including clear purpose statements for each forum, defined attendee roles, time management, and structured decision-making frameworks to maximize the return on leadership time. 

Create visibility tools (e.g., DCELT dashboards, strategic priority trackers, cross-functional dependency maps) that give the leadership team a consolidated view of commercial performance, initiative progress, and emerging risks. 

Facilitate DCELT working sessions on cross-cutting strategic topics, ensuring productive dialogue, clear outcomes, and documented next steps. 

Serve as a trusted advisor to the Head of Global Digital Experience & Commercial PMO on DCELT dynamics, identifying opportunities to improve how the team collaborates, communicates, and drives accountability. 

DSPS Operating Model & Capability Build 

Design and stand up the DSPS operating model, including sprint cadences, charter/dashboard standards, sponsor review rhythms, and escalation protocols. 

Develop and codify the DSPS methodology toolkit, including Problem Solving Process (PSP), Value Stream Mapping, Voice of the Customer, Transactional Process Improvement (TPI), Visual & Daily Management, and Kaizen event frameworks, adapted for the DePuy Synthes commercial context. 

Create standardized templates, storytelling tools, and reporting formats that enable project leads to consistently frame problems, quantify gaps, and communicate progress to executive sponsors. 

Build a capability-building curriculum to train project leads and core team members in lean Six Sigma fundamentals, raising the organization's baseline process improvement literacy over time. 

Portfolio Management & Governance 

Own the end-to-end DSPS portfolio, and maintain portfolio-level visibility through consolidated dashboards, milestone tracking, status reporting, and risk/barrier escalation, ensuring the Digital & Commercial Excellence Leadership Team has a clear line of sight into progress and impact. 

Facilitate sponsor kick-offs, sprint reviews, and periodic sponsor reviews. 

Establish and enforce charter discipline across all workstreams, ensuring each initiative has SMART goals and objectives, defined scope, a named sponsor and project lead/DRI, a core team, and planned impact metrics. 

Facilitation & Hands-On Problem Solving 

Serve as the primary facilitator for structured workshops, including value stream mapping sessions, process prioritization exercises, "Art of the Possible" design workshops, and test-and-learn sprints. 

Apply lean techniques directly to commercial processes, and champion an “on the ground” philosophy, spending time in the field, with customers, and alongside the teams doing the work to validate hypotheses with objective data rather than assumptions. 

Drive early, visible wins that build organizational credibility for the DSPS approach and create momentum for broader adoption. 

Performance Management & Data-Driven Decision Making 

Define and implement transparent KPIs for each DSPS workstream, ensuring impact is quantified in terms of cycle time reduction, cost savings, margin improvement, customer satisfaction, or other measurable outcomes. 

Partner with data & analytics teams to leverage centralized data assets for portfolio-level decision-making, process diagnostics, and performance benchmarking. 

Build the reporting and storytelling infrastructure that enables the Head of Global Digital Experience & Commercial PMO to represent DSPS progress on the Digital & Commercial Excellence Leadership Team with clarity and confidence. 

External Innovation & Market Model Evaluation 

Establish a structured framework for identifying, evaluating, and prioritizing external innovation opportunities (e.g., emerging technologies, digital health solutions, strategic partnerships) aligned with DePuy Synthes' commercial strategy. 

Lead or facilitate cross-functional evaluation sprints to assess the viability, scalability, and strategic fit of external solutions, applying lean experimentation and stage-gate principles. 

Conduct market model benchmarking and analysis, including go-to-market structures, pricing/contracting approaches, and channel strategies, to identify opportunities for DePuy Synthes to evolve its commercial model as a standalone entity. 

Partner with Strategy, Business Development, R&D, and Commercial Operations to ensure external innovation insights are integrated into the DCELT's strategic agenda and decision-making. 

Coordinate pilot programs or proof-of-concept initiatives with external partners, ensuring clear success criteria, governance, and a path to scale or exit. 

Synthesize external innovation and market model findings into executive-ready recommendations, leveraging the DSPS storytelling and reporting infrastructure. 

Stakeholder Management & Influence 

Operate as the day-to-day DSPS point of contact for executive sponsors across the Digital & Commercial Excellence Leadership Team, building trusted relationships and ensuring alignment between sponsor expectations and project execution. 

Coordinate across a complex stakeholder landscape spanning Commercial Operations, Finance (FP&A), Supply Chain, R&D, Sales, Marketing, Pricing & Contracting, and platform-level business unit leaders. 

Navigate the unique dynamics of a separation environment -- balancing urgency to stand up standalone capabilities with the discipline to design processes that will endure beyond Day 1. 

Scaling & Institutionalization 

Document lessons learned, playbooks, and case studies from initial DSPS initiatives to create a replicable model for future workstreams. 

Develop a credible scaling roadmap that articulates how DSPS could expand from the current five-initiative portfolio into broader commercial and enterprise process domains (e.g., enterprise project/portfolio management, innovation stage-gate processes, copy clearance, compensation design) as the capability matures. 

Identify and develop future DSPS leaders from within the project lead and core team population -- recognizing that the most engaged participants in early initiatives are the natural candidates to carry the capability forward. 

Advise leadership on the long-term resourcing model for DSPS, including the case for dedicated full-time resources versus embedded part-time contributors, informed by what has been learned from leading operational excellence benchmarks. 

Key Stakeholders 

Internal 

Head of Global Digital Experience & Commercial PMO 

Digital & Commercial Excellence Leadership Team (DCELT) 

DSPS Executive Sponsors  

DSPS Project Leads / DRIs across active workstreams 

Platform-level Business Unit Leaders  

Finance, FP&A & Business Planning 

Supply Chain, Procurement, & Manufacturing Partners 

IT, Data & Analytics 

Business Development 

R&D, Regulatory & Quality 

External 

Vendors & partners (as relevant to process improvement scope) 

Lean / Six Sigma consulting resources (as needed for capability acceleration) 

Scope of Influence 

Accountable for the DSPS operating model, portfolio governance, and methodology standards that underpin commercial process improvement across DePuy Synthes. 

Accountable for the design and management of the Digital & Commercial Excellence Leadership Team's operating rhythm, meeting effectiveness, and strategic agenda governance. 

Influences commercial strategy, operational process design, and technology roadmaps through structured problem-solving and data-driven recommendations. 

Directly manages DSPS portfolio execution and coordinates cross-functional project leads; provides facilitation leadership across sponsor-led workstreams. 

Serves as the escalation owner for cross-workstream dependencies, barriers to progress, and resource conflicts within the DSPS portfolio. 

Experience & Qualifications 

Required 

Bachelor's degree. 

8+ years of experience in operational excellence, process improvement, program/portfolio management, or management consulting roles, with at least 3-5 years leading cross-functional improvement initiatives in a commercial or go-to-market context. 

Demonstrated expertise in lean methodologies, Six Sigma (Green Belt minimum), and structured problem-solving frameworks (e.g., Value Stream Mapping, Kaizen facilitation). 

Proven ability to stand up new capabilities or functions from the ground up; experience in incubation, transformation, or "build" environments strongly valued. 

Experience designing and managing executive-level operating rhythms, including meeting structures, agenda governance, decision-tracking, and leadership team effectiveness frameworks. 

Strong facilitation skills with experience leading cross-functional workshops, sprint-based delivery models, and executive-level sponsor reviews. 

Experience building and managing a portfolio of concurrent improvement initiatives with multiple sponsors, varying timelines, and interdependencies. 

Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills in a matrixed environment, with demonstrated ability to drive outcomes through others without direct authority. 

Strong data literacy and comfort with performance management frameworks, KPI design, and data-driven storytelling. 

Experience working in a separation, carve-out, or large-scale organizational transformation environment. 

Preferred 

Master's degree in Business Administration, Engineering, Operations, or related field. 

Six Sigma Black Belt certification or equivalent. 

Experience in MedTech, medical devices, or healthcare commercial operations. 

Familiarity with commercial processes common in orthopaedics or surgical device businesses (e.g., capital equipment sales cycles, instrument set management, pricing & contracting, distributor/agent models). 

Exposure to operational excellence systems at scale. 

Familiarity with relevant business technology platforms (e.g., Salesforce, CPQ/CLM tools, etc.). 

Experience evaluating external innovation opportunities, emerging technologies, or strategic partnerships in a commercial or go-to-market context. 

Familiarity with market model analysis, including go-to-market strategy, channel optimization, and competitive benchmarking in MedTech or adjacent industries. 

Background in change management methodologies and organizational development. 

Prior experience serving as a chief of staff, business operations lead, or similar role supporting a senior leadership team. 

Strategic Impact 

This role will directly contribute to: 

Establishing the foundational DSPS capability that enables DePuy Synthes to operate as a continuously improving, data-driven standalone enterprise. 

Ensuring the Digital & Commercial Excellence Leadership Team operates with discipline, strategic focus, and accountability through a well-designed operating rhythm, maximizing the effectiveness of the senior leaders steering the business through separation and beyond. 

Delivering measurable commercial process improvements with quantified impact on cycle times, margins, and customer experience. 

Building organizational muscle in structured problem-solving and lean methodology that outlasts any single initiative. 

Creating the proof points and playbook required to scale DSPS from an incubation-stage capability into a core enterprise function. 

Accelerating DePuy Synthes' readiness to operate independently by ensuring critical commercial processes are designed, optimized, and sustainable for Day 1 and beyond. 

Enabling DePuy Synthes to systematically evaluate and integrate external innovation and evolving market models, ensuring the standalone enterprise remains competitive and forward-looking beyond Day 1. 
 
  

Johnson & Johnson is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by federal, state or local law. We actively seek qualified candidates who are protected veterans and individuals with disabilities as defined under VEVRAA and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act. 

Johnson and Johnson is committed to providing an interview process that is inclusive of our applicants' needs. If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request an accommodation, please email the Employee Health Support Center or contact AskGS to be directed to your accommodation resource.