Director, Commercial IT

This position reports to the VP of IT. The Director Commercial IT is an “hands on” role responsible for overall management and delivery of business applications and infrastructure for the Commercial organization which includes Sales, Marketing, Medical Affairs, Logistics, and Commercial leadership. The ideal candidate will possess excellent communication skills and deep pharma IT experience. This position directly interacts with the business to align strategies, manage expectations and ensure that the commercial application suite meets the needs of the business as we rapidly head towards our first product launch. This role will also monitor the performance of IT services consumed by its business units and partner with service delivery teams to address issues.

Specific Responsibilities

• Establishes and maintains productive relationships with internal stakeholders, internal technology teams and external technology vendors.
• Enable technology & reporting to support the Commercial team’s analytics needs including executive & leadership dashboards, launch reporting (Day 1-120), KPI reporting including design and implementation of dashboards
• Serve as subject matter expertise in identification, evaluation, design, development, and deployment of systems, processes, and reporting to support the Commercial team
• Spearheads and implements a range of technology projects originating from the Sales, Marketing, Patient Services HUB, Medical Affairs, Logistics, and Commercial Operations organizations as Iovance prepares and launches our initial product candidates
• Spearheads and implements a range of technology projects originating from the Sales, Marketing, Medical Affairs, Logistics, and Commercial Operations organizations as Iovance prepares and launches our initial product candidates.
• Gains understanding of business strategies and facilitates progress on IT responsibilities including definition of project objectives, prioritization, and development of implementation roadmaps aligned with business strategies.
• Manages multiple vendors including completion of RFPs/RFIs (vendor due diligence), negotiating the business terms of IT contracts, oversight of vendor fulfillment of contractual responsibilities, evaluation of policy and procedure adherence, and monitoring service level agreement performance.
• Identifies opportunities for operational efficiency and stays abreast of industry trends in business and technology.Drives and executes change control process and release management cycle for Commercial applications.
• Create process, system, and data maps for applications.
• Oversees and contributes to successful UAT and validation testing.
• Identify and implement key technology trends that can be leveraged to provide better solutions to the larger commercial team.

Qualifications:

• At least 10 years of increasing leadership experience and exposure working at the intersection of biotech/pharma, information technology, product launch and commercial operations. Experience with cell and gene therapies in a commercial setting is a plus.
• Understanding of both North American and European requirements as it pertains to regulated product delivery from an IT and compliance perspective.
• A strong background in both Waterfall and Agile software development methodology is preferred.
• Experience working in a regulated environment (GxP, FDA, SOX and PPSA).
• Subject matter expertise relevant to Commercial business processes and IT landscape in support of a commercialized pharmaceutical product or medical device.
• Strong understanding of HUB services and integration with corporate systems and processes.
• Strong interpersonal skills and excellent presentation and communication skills.
• Ability to communicate complex problems in a non-technical and simplified manner to stakeholders and end-users and to effectively communicate business needs to technology teams.
• Demonstrated ability to work in a multi-disciplinary setting, acting as a creator and facilitator to drive fulfillment of corporate strategic goals.
• Deep understanding of Change of Custody and Change of Identity requirements.
• Ability to anticipate and resolve problems effectively.
• Sound organizational and analytical skills.
• Possesses sense of urgency; identifies challenges and problems and takes the initiative to identify solutions.
• Demonstrated effective leadership skills in building high performance teams.
• Fosters and nurtures teamwork and cross-functional collaboration.
• Project management skills and focus on delivery of results.
• Thorough understanding of best practices in SDLC and ITIL.
• Flexible, adaptable and hands-on approach necessary.
• Experience in implementing IT strategies and technology roadmaps.

Preferred/Desirable Knowledge, Skills, and Education:

• Veeva/Salesforce
• MDM/Data Warehouse/Operational Data Store using tools like Snowflake.
• Strong Data Visualization – knowledge of standards
• Dashboards/Reporting – Spotfire/Plateau
• Commercial Training Platforms – Scrimmage
• PMP or other relevant certifications
• Bachelor’s degree (preferably Computer Science)/Master’s degree