Senior Director, Head of Research & Early Development

If you are a current Jazz employee please apply via the Internal Career site

Jazz Pharmaceuticals is a global biopharma company whose purpose is to innovate to transform the lives of patients and their families. We are dedicated to developing life-changing medicines for people with serious diseases — often with limited or no therapeutic options. We have a diverse portfolio of marketed medicines, including leading therapies for sleep disorders and epilepsy, and a growing portfolio of cancer treatments. Our patient-focused and science-driven approach powers pioneering research and development advancements across our robust pipeline of innovative therapeutics in oncology and neuroscience. Jazz is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland with research and development laboratories, manufacturing facilities and employees in multiple countries committed to serving patients worldwide. Please visit www.jazzpharmaceuticals.com for more information.

Job Description

Brief Description:

The Senior Director, Head of Research and Early Development Project Management is an executive-level operational and strategic leader accountable for establishing scalable, world-class project management capabilities across Jazz Pharmaceuticals’ growing discovery and early pipeline. Reporting directly to the Vice President, Head of Pipeline and Project Management, this leader will drive process optimization throughout the drug development life cycle from Candidate Drug Nomination through First-in-Human (FIH) clinical trials. 

This newly created role ensures robust cross-functional project execution across Oncology, Neuroscience, and emerging Rare Disease indications. The incumbent will cultivate high-performing project managers who operate as the operational leaders (“COOs”) of their respective drug programs, institutionalize the Orchestra Team Operating Model, and ensure seamless portfolio continuity into late-stage development. By partnering closely with Chief Scientific Officers, Corporate Strategy, Governance, and Finance, this leader will optimize development cycle times, accelerate pipeline progression, and translate scientific innovation into clinical assets for patients. Additionally, as a player-coach, this leader may personally lead high-priority projects and take on direct hands-on project work as needed to support portfolio capacity and strategic demand.

Essential Functions

1. Process Optimization & Life Cycle Progression (Discovery to FIH) 

• Path Acceleration: Champion continuous process improvement across the early drug development continuum from Discovery and Candidate Nomination through Investigational New Drug (IND) / Clinical Trial Authorization (CTA) and First-in-Human (FIH). 

• Cycle-Time Excellence: Establish standardized cycle-time benchmarks, identify key operational bottlenecks, and remove development friction to accelerate high-priority early medicines. 

• Scalable Infrastructure: Design and scale R&D operational processes to support the increasing demand of a growing neuroscience, oncology, and rare disease early-stage pipeline. 

2. Portfolio Oversight, Risk Management & Governance Partnering 

• Early Portfolio Monitoring: Maintain holistic, end-to-end operational visibility over risk profiles, critical-path dependencies, and strategic opportunities within the early-stage portfolio. 

• Governance Partnership: Partner with the Governance and Portfolio Management Lead to design and align consistent templates for early-stage governance presentations and rigorous post-governance project tracking. 

• Accountability Frameworks: Establish frameworks to ensure projects stay precisely on track with agreed-upon target timelines, milestones, and approved development budgets. 

3. Orchestra Operating Model & High-Performing Teams 

• Model Integration: Lead the active embedding and continuous sustainment of the Orchestra Team Operating Model across all early-stage project teams, clarifying roles, responsibilities, and team decision rights. 

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Break down traditional functional silos to build highly collaborative, high-performing drug discovery and early development teams. 

• PPM Vision Alignment: Embed the department’s core strategic pillars into day-to-day operations, shaping project managers as the strategic “COOs of their projects”. 

4. Executive Stakeholder Collaboration & Strategic Prioritization 

• C-Suite & CSO Engagement: Serve as an influential strategic partner to the Oncology and Neuroscience Chief Scientific Officers (CSOs), Corporate Strategy, and Governance leads. 

• Goal Setting & Trade-offs: Facilitate prioritization reviews and stage-gate trade-off scenarios to support R&D annual goal setting and executive-level portfolio prioritization. 

• Continuity Partnering: Collaborate actively with Late Development Project Leads to ensure seamless transitions, operational continuity, and robust portfolio-wide resource balancing. 

5. People Leadership & Talent Development 

• Line Management: Directly manage, mentor, and inspire a global team of early development project managers (Associate Directors and Directors). 

• Talent Strategy: Champion career progression, professional project management capability building, and capability development within the PPM organization. 

• Agile Resource Allocation: Strategically deploy team resources across early development programs while coordinating cross-portfolio support for late-stage programs when critical demand peaks. 

6. Financial Stewardship & Enterprise Systems 

• Budget Management: Partner with R&D Finance to develop, embed, and continuously optimize best practices for early-stage project budget formulation, forecasting, and financial governance. 

• Enterprise Mastery: Champion the rigorous use of enterprise planning tools, ensuring high data quality at the source: 

• Planisware: For enterprise work breakdown structures, schedule tracking, and detailed resource demand planning. 

• Smartsheet: For agile operational trackers, milestones, and executive-level dashboards. 

• Oracle: For project-level financial ledger tracking and variance analyses.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Experience Level: Extensive progressive biopharmaceutical industry experience, including extensive direct experience in early drug development (Discovery and Pre-clinical through IND enabling and FIH). 

• Leadership & Line Management: Proven track record of line-managing, coaching, and developing highly skilled, senior project/program managers. 

• Executive Presence: Outstanding capability to lead, align, and influence executive-level scientists, C-suite leaders, and scientific governance bodies without direct authority. 

• Technical & Platform Mastery: Hands-on experience and professional proficiency with PPM enterprise tools, specifically Planisware, Smartsheet, and Oracle. 

• Pathway Optimization: Proven, referenceable track record of optimizing drug development pathways, driving process redesign, and reducing pre-clinical cycle times.

Required/Preferred Education and Licenses

• Bachelor’s degree in Life Sciences, Engineering, Business, or related field required.

• Advanced degree (PhD, PharmD, MS, or MBA) strongly preferred. 
• PMP or equivalent professional project management certification is a plus.

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Jazz Pharmaceuticals is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any characteristic protected by law.

FOR US BASED CANDIDATES ONLY
 

Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices and we strive to provide employees with total compensation packages that are market competitive. For this role, the full and complete base pay range is:

Individual compensation paid within this range will depend on many factors, including qualifications, skills, relevant experience, job knowledge, and other pertinent factors. The goal is to ensure fair and competitive compensation aligned with the candidate's expertise and contributions, within the established pay framework and our Total Compensation philosophy. Internal equity considerations will also influence individual base pay decisions. This range will be reviewed on a regular basis.

At Jazz, your base pay is only one part of your total compensation package. The successful candidate may also be eligible for a discretionary annual cash bonus or incentive compensation (depending on the role), in accordance with the terms of the Company's Global Cash Bonus Plan or Incentive Compensation Plan, as well as discretionary equity grants in accordance with Jazz’s Long Term Equity Incentive Plan. 

The successful candidate will also be eligible to participate in various benefits offerings, including, but not limited to, medical, dental and vision insurance, 401k retirement savings plan, and flexible paid vacation. For more information on our Benefits offerings please click here: https://careers.jazzpharma.com/benefits.html