The Global Program Director (GPD) has overall responsibility and accountability for providing Global Operational Leadership and proactive Client Relationship management to a client or group of clients as appropriate ensuring appropriate communication, business engagement, implementation and service delivery to enable retention, growth and long term mutual business partnership.  This will be achieved through leading global teams comprised of Global Project Leads and Project Managers across multiple service lines and functions, including some or all of the following:  Distribution, Packaging, Clinical Supply Optimization Services, Clinical Ancillary Management, Comparator, Labeling and Business Development.
 
The GPD is assigned to manage the relationship holistically, understanding the client’s strategy and portfolio of products in the pipeline; leverage our global network to achieve client objectives; point of escalation for the client and the Global Project Lead.
 
Responsibilities:

• Manages and leads strategic operational aspects of large-scale clinical trial projects / programs with the client and project management teams to ensure timely, coordinated risk mitigated delivery of projects and services.
• Plans, analyzes and assesses client business potential and commercial proposals working in partnership with assigned Global Relationship Directors, and Business and Account executives and development teams, including assisting with the formulation of plans for growth, AOP and strategy of new service lines. 
• Provides senior level consultation and support both within the business and to the client to continually provide service improvements and expand service line offerings.
• Anticipates, understands, and responds to the needs of clients within our organizational success parameters by acting as the “Voice of the Customer” catalyst in the organization.
• Recommends appropriate placement of work for assigned clients at various sites making the appropriate technology, region or capacity decision in the best interest of the client’s study.   
• Ensures the executive sponsor is informed of all customer relationship issues, needs and developments.
• Leads client business review process, QBR’s, Quality reviews, meetings, and workshops with overall collation assessment monitoring of actions, business performance metrics and targets.
• Works with Global Project Leader to define project milestones and deliverables, to monitor and report on critical path.  
• Conducts risk review of project plan and critical path deliverables on a reoccurring basis and establishes shared risk mitigation plans.
• Manages and facilitates client problem and solution escalation process serving as a liaison with Global Project Leadership to ensure effective solution/resolution. 
• Communicates with clients and other stakeholders to gain support for improvement initiatives and actively solicits suggestions for improvement. . 
• Sets priorities, monitors progress towards goals, and tracks key details.  Reports progress as required.
• Applies appropriate rationale and effective communication skills that will be able to influence key decisions and lead constructive debate on challenging topics across multi-site projects / programs.

 
Minimum Qualifications:

• Requires in depth understanding of clinical trials and other business services.
• Requires understanding and competent use of SOPs required by company Quality standards. 
• Requires good knowledge of company functions globally and a deep understanding of the relationships and processes integration among departments within the business.
• Requires ability to actively and successfully use a range of influencing and leadership styles dependent on situation..
• Requires ability to influence internal and external contacts on services including but not limited to, Clinical Research, IVR and vendor management groups.
• Requires ability to effectively apply logic to analyze situation, break down into root cause and develop/ test solutions.
• Requires ability to assess situations to determine the importance, urgency and risks, and makes clear decisions which are timely and in the best interests of the organization.
• Requires ability to assess problem situations to identify causes, gather and process relevant information, generate possible solutions, and make recommendations and/or resolve the problem.
• Requires experience with both detail execution and strategic orientation.

 
Preferred Qualifications:

• Prefer Certification in Project Management (PMP)

 
Education/ Experience:

• Requires accredited college or university degree, preferably in a health-related field. Prefer advanced degree in a health-related field.
• Requires 10 years’ experience within pharmaceutical research and development.  
• Requires strong interpersonal and communication skills to include excellent relationship building.   
• Requires proven experience working with direct management of teams in a complex global environment.
• Requires proven experience with customers in a dynamic environment.
• Requires working knowledge of core service line and strategic level overview of all service lines.  
• Requires in-depth knowledge of project management tools and techniques. 

 
Work Conditions/Physical Requirements:

• Ability to work on occasion in a cold environment with exposure to dry ice, liquid nitrogen cryogenics, hazardous and infectious agents, marked changes in temperature.
• 10 - 25% Travel domestically and internationally as needed.

 
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is the world leader in serving science, with annual revenue
exceeding $25 billion. Our Mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier,
cleaner and safer. Whether our customers are accelerating life sciences research, solving
complex analytical challenges, improving patient diagnostics and therapies or increasing
productivity in their laboratories, we are here to support them. Our global team of more than
75,000 colleagues delivers an unrivaled combination of innovative technologies, purchasing
convenience and pharmaceutical services through our industry-leading brands, including
Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Fisher Scientific, Unity Lab Services and
Patheon. For more information, please visit www.thermofisher.com.