Director, Research CMC and Labs Critical Apps

GlaxoSmithKline; Greater London, Stevenage; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 120,000

Job description

Site Name: UK - Hertfordshire - Stevenage, Poznan Pastelowa
Posted Date: Mar 28 2025

Director, Research CMC and Labs Critical Apps

GSK’s R&D and Digital & Tech teams are working together to accelerate the discovery and development of medicines and vaccines, aiming to help 2.5 billion patients and support our scientists by supercharging R&D with Data. The Quality Engineering and Labs (QEL) function supports about 500 systems that are essential to the R&D process, including 250 systems crucial to Research, CMC, and Labs. Some of these systems impact patient safety and play a critical role in getting medicines and vaccines to patients faster.

Role Overview:

As the Director of Research CMC and Labs Critical Apps, you will report to the Senior Director of Research CMC & Labs Operations and work closely with the Director of Scientific Applications, and other leaders across the Digital & Tech organization. You will lead a team managing a portfolio of critical R&D applications, ensuring operational excellence and service management. Your responsibilities will include optimizing the application landscape, ensuring compliance, and driving automation to improve performance and efficiency.

Key Responsibilities:

• Manage ~20 critical applications that support Research, CMC, and Labs, including lifecycle management and new application transitions.

• Develop and implement an automation roadmap aligned with broader organizational goals. This would include a good understanding of the applicability of AI for operations, and how an AiOps platform could be leveraged to ensure that issues are identified and fixed quickly.

• Oversee vendor management to ensure strong resource availability and capability.

• Build strong relationships with CMC, QEL, and other key stakeholders to support service management.

• Ensure compliance with enterprise changes, risk management, and security requirements.

• Manage financial aspects of the portfolio, including technical debt and cloud costs.

• Monitor and report on key metrics like SLAs, KPIs, and efficiency to ensure value for R&D.

• Lead projects to improve and maintain the portfolio, such as addressing security vulnerabilities.

• Foster a development-first mindset, keeping the team up-to-date on the latest technologies.

Why you?

Basic Qualifications:

We are looking for professionals with these required skills to achieve our goals:

• Significant experience in technology delivery and portfolio management.

• Strong ITIL-based service management expertise.

• Direct experience in implementing and managing application performance, observability, and telemetry.

• A thorough knowledge of infrastructure and application architectures and their eco-systems.

• Management and the improvement of risks and controls as they relate to an IT infrastructure.

• Data mastering, data catalogue, and data distribution in supporting end to end business processes.

• Experience managing global projects and teams across different time zones.

• Experience building and managing high-performing teams.

• Knowledge of agile methodologies and how to apply them in a global organisation.

Preferred Qualifications:

If you have the following characteristics, it would be a plus:

• Strong understanding of R&D Digital & Tech, CMC, and Labs operations, and related tech strategies.

• Excellent leadership and communication skills with the ability to influence at all levels.

• Proven ability to deliver insights and recommendations to senior leaders.

• Proven ability to work independently & strong attention to detail.

• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.

• Proven ability to work well under pressure and within tight deadlines.

Interested in Joining the Team?

Please apply via our online portal providing your CV and Cover Letter.

Closing Date: COP 12th April 2025

Hybrid working applies to this role, min 2 days a week onsite; ideally 3.