Executive Director of Portfolio Strategy & Analytics

Job Description

Everyone at Kite is grounded by one common goal – curing cancer. Every single day, we seek to establish a direct line between that purpose and our day-to-day work. Would you like to join us in this mission?

We are looking for an experienced leader to join us as the Executive Director of Portfolio Strategy & Analytics. The Executive Director leads a team responsible for developing Kite’s portfolio strategy and a real-time, quantitative view of Kite’s pipeline performance and return on investment at both the portfolio and asset level. Internally known an Executive Director of Corporate Development, this leader will keep a finger on the pulse of the overall health of the pipeline and anticipate and communicate portfolio risks and growth opportunities to Kite and Gilead leaders.

Influence and partnership is key for this role, as the Executive Director will need to build strong relationships across Global Program Leads, Product Team Leads, Research, Development, Tech Ops & Commercial to develop a nuanced understanding of the portfolio. Finally, this leader will be responsible for driving continual evolution of our enterprise-wide cross-functional product team and governance model at Kite.

The Executive Director of Portfolio Strategy & Analytics reports to the Vice President of Global Portfolio & Program Strategy. To create a strong partnership with stakeholders and leaders across the corporation, as well as to foster continued professional growth, we would like this leader to be based in Kite’s global headquarters in Santa Monica, CA.

Responsibilities of the Executive Director of Portfolio Strategy & Analytics include:

Strategic Acumen:

• Develops Kite portfolio strategy and directs Portfolio Strategy and Analytics team to proactively conduct analyses that would be useful to business leaders as they approach key strategic decisions and evaluate options

• Understands the impact of those strategic decisions, and is able to highlight important tradeoffs, key value drivers, and inherent risks

• Advises on capital allocation and portfolio choice decisions

• Translates long-term targets into tangible financial and operational objectives for the business

Delivery Excellence:

• Drives a standardized and rigorous process for cross-functional data collection and analysis to ensure a consistent approach to how Kite views markets/competitive environments

• Inputs into revenue potential models of assets, and assesses the technical, operational, and regulatory risks of developing those assets

• Manages the cadence of reporting out portfolio metrics to key stakeholders and helps leadership interpret the portfolio metrics and understand the rationale for key assumptions that informed those analyses

• Supports the quantitative assessment of new external pipeline opportunities; Periodically benchmarks Kite’s portfolio performance / R&D productivity against peers

• Seeks opportunities to continually drive efficiency and automation in portfolio data collection, analysis and reporting

Influence and Partnership:

• Works closely with internal functions to collect and understand financial and operational data including budgets, forecasts, timelines and key milestones

• Engages with external R&D partners as needed to share information and develop an accurate picture of external pipeline assets

• Partners with Business Development team to evaluate new opportunities including acquisitions and in-licenses

• Stays connected to external thought partners to keep current on industry and therapeutic area trends and benchmark Kite’s R&D performance against its peers

Operating Model Leadership:

• Ensures maturation of operating model capabilities and advancing its effectiveness across the drug development lifecycle from early stage to commercial launch and beyond

• Manages the Portfolio and Program Committee, an enterprise governing body comprised of executive leaders across Kite

Decision-making:

• Maintains a culture of rigorous data-driven decision making that rewards truth-seeking behavior

• Encourages employees to exercise good judgement and embrace decision making

• Empowers capable individuals to be accountable decision-makers

People Development:

• Attracts industry leading talent and grows leaders

• Develops others by identifying and mentoring high performers and building a culture of inclusion and collaboration throughout the organization

• Delegates responsibility and empowers others

Change Leadership:

• Builds on previous experiences to effectively drive transformational change across an organization effectively

Communication:

• Excels in both written and oral communication to both internal and external stakeholders and has the ability to distill complex topics into their essential elements.

Innovation:

• Identifies and develops new capabilities to support advancement in analytics and portfolio strategy

Basic Qualifications:

PhD and 14 years of Analytics and/or Strategy and/or Operations and/or Project Management experience

OR

MS / MA Degree and 14 years of Analytics and/or Strategy and/or Operations and/or Project Management experience

OR

BS / BA Degree and 16 years of Analytics and/or Strategy and/or Operations and/or Project Management experience

OR

High School Degree and 20 years of Analytics and/or Strategy and/or Operations and/or Project Management experience

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in a scientific discipline, advanced or professional degree desirable (ex. PhD, MD, or MBA)

• 10 years of biopharmaceutical industry drug development experience, early through late stage development, with an understanding of portfolio strategy

• Experience framing and solving complex problems, conducting and guiding rigorous quantitative analyses, and interpreting results in a business context

• Robust drug development experience and have ideally worked across multiple therapeutic areas

• Ability to create and fulfill a vision in a matrix environment and work collaboratively with internal stakeholders across different functions

• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including the ability to translate between business leaders, scientists and technologists

• Credibility and reputation to attract and retain top talent with a history of creating teams that can thrive in a fast-paced, matrixed environment

• Leadership, collaboration, relationship building, and interpersonal skills

Does this sound like you? If so, please apply today!

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