R&D Operations Senior Manager

Overview

This role leads the end-to-end budget execution process for assigned R&D organizations and serves as a trusted partner to functional leadership and R&D Finance. The position is accountable for timely, high-quality delivery of annual budget planning, quarterly forecast updates, close activities, leadership reporting, and forward-looking financial insights.

Responsibilities

• Lead the end-to-end budget management and execution process for assigned R&D organization(s), including annual budget planning, quarterly forecast updates, close activities, leadership updates, and other periodic financial deliverables.
• Serve as the primary Budget Management & Execution partner for functional leadership and R&D Finance, ensuring financial forecasts reflect business priorities, evolving strategy, and prioritization of activities.
• Translate changes in baseline spend, portfolio or operational assumptions, resource needs, and business priorities into clear financial implications, forecasts, risks, and recommended actions.
• Maintain disciplined governance of budget plans, including reconciliation of actuals and commitments to plan and identification of meaningful forecast variances and emerging spending trends.
• Lead the collection, challenge, validation, and synthesis of planning assumptions and long-range spend drivers supporting annual budget and long-range planning activities.
• Develop leadership-ready financial reporting, analyses, and narratives that communicate budget status, drivers of change, risks and opportunities, resource utilization, and decision points.
• Provide analytical support for functional initiatives, productivity opportunities, scenario development, and business case generation, including measurement of expected and realized benefits where appropriate.
• Enable execution of capital and operating expense plans through forecasting, funding alignment, financial tracking, and partnership with relevant functional and finance stakeholders.
• Provide expert budget execution support across the procure-to-pay process, resolving escalated issues and partnering with transactional finance, sourcing, and other business partners to improve execution and controls.
• Lead and coordinate finance-driven periodic activities such as accruals, purchase order maintenance, forecast updates, and ad hoc financial exercises.
• Serve as an advanced user of financial planning, reporting, and collaboration systems; promote consistent application of tools, processes, and data standards across the supported organization.
• Advance self-service and data-driven decision making by improving dashboards, reporting products, analytics, and other tools that provide leaders with timely and actionable financial insights.
• Contribute to the development and continuous improvement of Budget Management & Execution processes, standards, tools, and operating practices, identifying opportunities to simplify work, strengthen controls, improve cycle time, and increase scalability.
• Contribute a business-partner perspective to R&D Finance, Corporate Finance, and other cross-functional initiatives affecting budget management and execution.
• Build and maintain strong partnerships across R&D functions, R&D Finance and FP&A, Global Strategic Sourcing, transactional finance, Supplier Management & Performance Analytics, and other business and corporate partners.

People Leadership

• Manage the day-to-day activities and priorities of assigned Budget Management & Execution team members, ensuring high-quality and consistent delivery across supported functions.
• Translate business plans and objectives into clear priorities, assignments, timelines, and expectations for the team.
• Provide coaching, feedback, training, and development to direct reports and other team members to build financial, analytical, business-partnering, and leadership capabilities.
• Allocate resources and adjust team priorities as business needs evolve while maintaining delivery of core financial commitments.
• Foster a collaborative, inclusive, customer-focused environment that encourages continuous improvement, strong judgment, and accountability for results.

Requirements

Basic Qualifications

Choose the option that matches your education and experience:

• Doctorate degree and 2 years of biotech/pharma business operations and/or financial analytics experience
• OR Master’s degree and 4 years of biotech/pharma business operations and/or financial analytics experience
• OR Bachelor’s degree and 6 years of biotech/pharma business operations and/or financial analytics experience
• OR Associate’s degree and 10 years of biotech/pharma business operations and/or financial analytics experience
• OR High school diploma / GED and 12 years of biotech/pharma business operations and/or financial analytics experience

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree in business, finance, life sciences, or a related field.
• Demonstrated experience in budget management, financial planning, forecasting, reporting, and variance/root-cause analysis.
• Experience leading professional employees and/or demonstrated leadership of teams, projects, programs, or financial resources.
• Strong project and operational management experience, including the ability to establish priorities, manage competing deliverables, and drive high-quality execution.
• Working knowledge of the drug development process and how R&D organizations translate scientific and business strategy into portfolios, operating plans, and investment decisions.
• Demonstrated ability to partner effectively with functional leaders and finance stakeholders and translate business priorities into financial forecasts and actionable insights.
• Experience developing executive- or leadership-level financial narratives, presentations, analyses, and decision-support materials.
• Ability to work with detailed and complex information while identifying trends, implications, risks, and actions.
• Demonstrated proficiency with data visualization and collaboration tools such as Tableau, Smartsheet, and Microsoft Teams.
• Advanced Excel skills and strong command of the Microsoft Office suite.
• Experience with enterprise financial planning and procurement platforms such as SAP, Ariba, and Anaplan.
• Demonstrated ability to leverage automation, digital tools, and AI-enabled solutions to streamline workflows, improve controls, and elevate financial insights.
• Experience driving continuous improvement and change within business processes, tools, or operating models.
• Ability to thrive in a complex, matrixed environment; collaborate across organizational levels; influence without direct authority; and exercise sound judgment across multiple priorities.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to distill nuanced financial and business information into clear, concise, decision-ready messages.
• Strong relationship-building skills and a customer-service orientation, with a bias toward collaborative problem solving and solution delivery.
• Curious, proactive leader who learns quickly, takes initiative, develops others, and continuously raises the quality of team execution.

Compensation & Benefits

• The expected annual salary range for this role in the U.S. (excluding Puerto Rico) is posted. Actual salary varies based on relevant skills, experience, and qualifications.
• In addition to base salary, eligible employees may participate in a Total Rewards Plan that may include:
  • Health and welfare plans for staff and eligible dependents
  • Financial plans with opportunities to save towards retirement or other goals
  • Work/life balance
  • Career development opportunities
  • Retirement and Savings Plan with generous company contributions
  • Group medical, dental and vision coverage
  • Life and disability insurance
  • Flexible spending accounts
  • A discretionary annual bonus program (or sales-based incentive plan for field sales representatives)
  • Stock-based long-term incentives
  • Time-off plans
  • Flexible work models where possible (refer to the Work Location Type in the job posting)

Location

United States (excluding Puerto Rico).