Associate Director, Obesity Strategic Management, Chief of Staff

Purpose

AbbVie has the opportunity to make a meaningful difference in the quickly evolving area of obesity, with the introduction of this new Therapeutic Area to the portfolio. 

The Associate Director, Obesity Strategic Management will be the Chief of Staff (CoS) to the VP, Obesity Discovery Research and ABA Site Head

The Chief of Staff will support the VP of Obesity Discovery Research in creating a new and Obesity Discovery Research organization, initially focused on enabling research through CROs and external collaborations with small internal research capabilities.  The area will be grounded with a strong culture that will increase AbbVie chances of success. 

This role serves as a strategic partner, responsible for optimizing operational activities, developing, and implementing strategic initiatives, driving alignment with Discovery Research business priorities, and ensuring follow through across the organization. The CoS will provide additional enterprise support by looking across the VPs diverse areas of responsibility (Obesity Discovery Research/AbbVie Bay Area Site Head/Head of Venture Partners) to support efficiencies.

Acting as a trusted advisor to the VP, the CoS provides candid feedback, strategic counsel, and enables decision making. The individual is detailed oriented and operationally savvy, adept at cross functional communication and synthesizing diverse inputs to drive alignment and organizational success in complex situations. Success in this role requires strong organizational and political acumen, excellent interpersonal, collaborative skills, and broad strategic thinking.

 

Responsibilities:

• Directly supports the VP, with development, communication, execution, and management of strategic initiatives as well as ensuring operational excellence across the organization.
• Serves as a core member and core strategic thought partner of the Obesity Discovery Senior Leadership Team, setting agendas, facilitating, and influencing both short- and long-term strategies.
• Delivers results by aligning strategy and operations, building relationships, facilitating collaboration, and driving the execution of key initiatives to support exceptional departmental performance. 
• Facilitates collaboration across functions and sites, synthesizes diverse inputs, and monitors progress on cross functional projects, including establishing and driving culture.  Liaison with other departments and functions within AbbVie to foster strategic partnerships, opportunity identification and realization, and issue resolution.
• Manages organizational change and transformation, optimizing effectiveness to deliver on strategic goals. Maximizes opportunities to capture institutional knowledge, highlight best practice, and share learnings across sites and teams.
• Maintains and optimizes the area’s business strategy through strong collaboration with Finance, Business Management, and Discovery Leadership.
• Responsible for framing complex issues, delivering management presentations, and leveraging operational knowledge to drive organizational improvement.  Responsible for department communications including strategic messages, annual communications and forum planning, material development, and facilitation/delivery.
• Coordinates and monitors department business management routines including performance metrics, operating reviews, and management reviews. 

• Bachelor’s degree in physical science (Advanced degree preferred) and a minimum of 15 years of working in the pharmaceutical industry in a variety of leadership roles associated with research and development, program, business, and department management, including experience implementing large-scale change or business transformation.
• Research & Development experience in Neuroscience and Obesity Therapeutic Areas preferred.
• Demonstrated success in leading complex global processes or initiatives.
• Recognized leader in standard business procedures including project management practices, portfolio review, finance, and budgeting.  Excellent business and financial aptitude, very analytical and uses data to drive the business.  Operations experience with large budgets.
• Demonstrated ability to operate with a high degree of autonomy.
• Excellent collaborator with high EQ – easily builds relationships and gains cross functional alignment.

Key leadership attributes:

• Excellence Interpersonal skills. Ability to positively interact with Discovery Research team as well as senior R&D and AbbVie leadership representing Obesity Discovery Research
• Ability to manage multiple high priority projects simultaneously and prioritize to meet key deadlines
• Recognized team player with proven facilitative leadership skills in a cross-functional global team environment. Proven performance in a matrix environment with ability to influence and align stakeholders
• Ability to develop, assess, and advance multiple solution pathways, including determining when issues require escalation for resolution or intervention
• Strong executive presence, maturity, discretion, independent, self-motivated and willing to take decisions on behalf of the VP
• Strong analytical skills. Ability to evaluate complex issues from multiple perspectives to ensure that balanced risk assessments are made
• Creates a learning environment, open to suggestions and experimentation for improvement

• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including the ability to distill complex analyses and recommendations into clear, concise materials for executive level audiences.  

About AbbVie

AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas including immunology, oncology and neuroscience - and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us at www.abbvie.com. Follow @abbvie on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube.

Applicable only to applicants applying to a position in any location with pay disclosure requirements under state or local law: ​

• The compensation range described below is the range of possible base pay compensation that the Company believes in good faith it will pay for this role at the time of thisposting based on the job grade for this position. Individual compensation paid within this range will depend on many factors including geographic location,and we may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range may be modified in the future. ​

• We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick), medical/dental/vision insurance and 401(k) to eligible employees.​

• This job is eligible to participate in our long-term incentive programs. ​

Note: No amount of pay is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission,incentive, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole and absolute discretion unless anduntil paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole and absolute discretion, consistent with applicable law.​

AbbVie is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to operating with integrity, driving innovation, transforming lives and serving our community.  Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled. 

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