Location: Princeton, NJ
Overview of Role:
The Senior Director, Commercial Excellence leads the headquarters side of Commercial Operations. This role builds and governs the systems, rules, and processes that Marketing, Market Access, Market Research, Finance, and Compliance all work from. This is the backbone of Commercial Operations: people, process, data, technology (the commercial systems the teams use), training, reporting, and analytics. That covers Marketing Operations, commercial data and technology, commercial training, incentive compensation, territory design, CRM, targeting and segmentation, roster management, and field reporting standards. The test for this role is simple: if the answer should be the same in every region, it belongs here. This leader is the single point of operational accountability for the function and partners with Field Excellence, which deploys this infrastructure as the dedicated operational partner to Sales. This role is also the functional partner for the Oncology Nurse Educators and Regional Marketing Directors, who report to Marketing, and the Field Reimbursement Managers, who report to Market Access. Ivonescimab is an intravenous, buy-and-bill oncology product, and Summit has not commercialized a product before, so this leader builds the function rather than inheriting it. This role does not carry a sales quota, does not receive territory-based sales incentive compensation, and does not conduct promotional activity with customers. This position reports to the Executive Director, Commercial Operations. Direct reports are the Director, Marketing Operations; Director, Commercial Data & Technology; Director, Commercial Excellence; and Director, Field Learning & Development.
Role and Responsibilities:
- Set the strategy, operating model, and annual plan for the function, built to support the ivonescimab launch, future indications, and the wider portfolio
- Own the backbone of Commercial Operations (people, process, data, commercial technology, training, reporting, and analytics), and make sure each one is built, governed, and working for every function that relies on it
- Serve as the primary operational counterpart to Marketing, Market Access, and Market Research, and resolve cross-functional operational conflicts before they reach the field
- Serve as the functional partner for the Oncology Nurse Educators and Regional Marketing Directors (reporting to Marketing) and the Field Reimbursement Managers (reporting to Market Access), so their work runs on the same systems, definitions, and processes as the rest of the organization
- Lead Marketing Operations through the Director, Marketing Operations, including promotional review workflow, material fulfillment, meetings and events, speaker programs, agency management, and budget
- Oversee commercial data and technology through the Director, Commercial Data & Technology, including commercial data strategy, customer master data, the data warehouse, third-party data contracting, and the commercial systems the teams use, such as CRM. Set the business requirements for those systems and partner with IT on delivery
- Oversee commercial training through the Director, Field Learning & Development, including training strategy, the launch training plan, the learning management system, and onboarding
- Lead, through the Director, Commercial Excellence, incentive compensation design and governance, territory design and change governance, CRM business requirements and administration, targeting and segmentation methodology, and roster management and goal setting, so each one is compliant, accurate, and consistent nationally
- Set field reporting standards, working from the metric definitions owned by the Director, Commercial Analytics & Information
- Support Finance and Compliance on process governance, audit readiness, and Sunshine Act reporting
- Partner with the National Senior Director, Field Excellence so field patterns come back to headquarters and get fixed once, nationally
- Manage vendor relationships across all four teams, and build and own the annual budget for the function
- Ensure compliance with legal, regulatory, and quality standards across all commercial operations activities
- Lead, coach, and develop the four direct reports
- All other duties as assigned
Experience, Education and Specialized Knowledge and Skills:
- Education: Bachelor's degree required. MBA or advanced degree preferred
- Minimum of 12+ years of commercial or sales operations experience in the pharmaceutical or biotechnology industry. Field experience at a senior level. Product launch experience required. Oncology experience preferred. Experience with buy-and-bill products and the data limitations that come with them preferred
- Specialized Knowledge and Skills: Deep understanding of market dynamics, data sources, field roles, and buying pathways, with oncology knowledge preferred. Detailed understanding of sales processes, sales data tracking, sales force automation, incentive compensation operations, and sales force alignments. Expertise in CRM platforms, incentive compensation modeling, and commercial analytics. Ability to develop and coach direct reports. Excellent verbal, written, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence and manage expectations with sales management and cross-functional teams. Strong leadership, cross-functional collaboration, and project management skills. Able to excel in fast-paced, high-growth biotechnology environments
- Travel: Approximately 25% domestic travel, including national and regional sales meetings