Job Description Summary

The Execution Excellence & Portfolio Head in Eurasia ensures patient access to Rest of Portfolio products through translating International frameworks to local execution, alliances & partnerships management and life cycle management, while also leading a neutral, cross-functional team to drive execution excellence by harmonizing standards, ensuring consistent and continuous improvement, and building future‑ready capabilities across TA, Value & Access, and selected Medical Affairs areas (specifically Data, Analytics & Platforms and Capability Building), enabling data‑driven decision‑making and optimized resource allocation.
The role ensures an efficient collaboration model with above- & in-country functions to execute International / Regional strategies within resource constrained environment.

 

Job Description

Accountabilities as Portfolio Head

 

Portfolio Management

•        Drive patient access to medicines in line with global guidance

•        Provide inputs to forecasts and monitor budgets & resource allocation to support portfolio goals.

•        Track portfolio, brand, and lifecycle performance using internal and external data. Follow market trends to support decision-making. Track portfolio performance on account level.

•        Liaise with Regulatory teams to ensure a proper portfolio management in terms of Risk Management Plan fine-tuning/amendments.

•        Manage ad hoc requests responding promptly to urgent and routine operational requests.

 

Lifecycle Management (LCM)

•        Build LoE excellence, tracking and preparing brands for LoE with tailored tactics.

•        Onboard brands from TAs by coordinating the transition of brands into the Portfolio unit, ensuring seamless transfer and streamlining of assets, budgets, analytics, and engaging key stakeholders for a smooth handover.

•        Partner with HQ, Legal, V&A, Supply chain and Finance to ensure proper estimation of patient access decline post LoE; support supply chain

•        Identify and apply late LCM activities, implement tactics to sustain patient access to brands.

•        Recommend assets to be externalized to reduce maintenance efforts, transferring or retiring assets to streamline operations and reduce costs.

 

Digital Promotion

•        Promote Rest of Portfolio brands through digital channels, utilizing digital platforms to maintain brand visibility and engagement where required.

•        Manage content and channels, regularly updating and optimizing digital assets to maintain compliance and relevance.

•        Partner with TA Heads to identify opportunities for synergies and leverage digital promotion assets/plan to support patient access to brands.

 

Partnerships & Alliances:

•        In alignment with HQ identify and evaluate partnership opportunities, proactively scanning for and assessing external collaborations that can enhance patient access.

•        Support negotiations and formalizing partnership terms to align with operational objectives set by International.

•        Manage & sustain alliances, track performance and compliance of partnerships, overseeing ongoing partnerships to ensure mutual benefit and adapt to evolving needs.

 

Accountabilities as Execution Excellence Head

Field Excellence (Supports TA and V&A)

• Support the design and operationalization of field performance evaluation plans, Value & Access field metrics, territory structures, and field force sizing in alignment with internal/external benchmarking and continuous workforce planning perspectives (final accountability remains with TA and Value & Access leads)
• Implement balanced territory structures, revise territory maps, conduct rep placement analytics, and generate actionable insights while respecting functional boundaries.
• Recommend optimal field force size and organizational structure to support launch brands and Value & Access expert engagement plans.
• Build ambitious, competitive, motivational and compliant performance evaluation models, reward systems to ensure financial targets are achieved.
• Sets competitive in-field metric KPIs and ensures they`re delivered

 

Integrated Insights (Supports TA and V&A)

• Deliver integrated metrics and measurements, and business insights to guide decision-making.
• Partner with finance to generate the analytical insights and cross functional consolidation needed for business decisions, including brand performance, market modelling assumptions, and resources-workforce planning optimization.
• Lead market research planning including patient journey mapping, segmentation, and market sizing, medical, payers research, and competitive assessment.
• Conduct deep-dive analyses using internal & external data sources; manage external data acquisition & liaise with external partners based on current/future needs, to enable business and operational insights generation, anticipation of trends for supporting better data-driven TA and Value & Access decisions.
• Map competitive dynamics, industry evolution, healthcare system trends, and digital/technology developments for each TA and Value & Access team.

 

Data, Analytics & Platforms (Supports TA, V&A, Medical) 

• As per HQ/regional/global guidelines, drive standardization including tools/processes/data and maintain a federated, trusted view of business-critical data
• Define business rules for data processing and ensure end‑to‑end data quality across TA, Medical, and Access, including CRM data platforms management.
• Define and maintain data sources, processing and quality for TA, Medical, and Access Global KPI reporting
• Liaise with Integrated Insights to develop dashboards and reporting tailored to functional needs
• Drive change management and ensure proper adoption of technology platforms and assets developed by International
• Enable tech readiness for global execution excellence initiatives (e.g. ICE, IMEx, IpEx, etc.)
• Manage AI products that enhance customer engagement and productivity
• Partner with Capability Building for strengthening technology, digital, AI savviness, skillsets and adoption.

 

Capability Building (Supports TA, V&A, Medical) 

• Assess capability needs across TA, medical and V&A in alignment with International global priorities, including building on outside in perspective of market context/trends in specific domains.
• Deploy and deliver business learning/curriculum programs tailored to country needs.
• Set standards for learning governance, measurement, and effectiveness.
• Execute/deliver global learning experiences and tools, in partnership with functional teams.
• Maintain effective partnerships with external vendors to ensure high‑quality & efficient budget mngt for training local adaptions and/or deployment of globally developed materials/programs/curricula.

 

Customer Excellence (Supports TA, V&A)

• Identifies opportunities and development of action plans and execution that will increase overall effectiveness and efficiency of the organization
• Ensure content readiness and activation across field technology platforms and channels.
• Responsible for providing data/insights to inform TA decisions or global/above country decisions on product distribution approach and responsible to implementing, updating, reporting in systems
• Validate customer journeys and guide omnichannel excellence.
• Coordinate congress logistics and vendor management.
• Implement frameworks to optimize promotional and access resource deployment.
• Drive implementation of ICE, IPEx, promotional excellence (process, quality of OneBrand plan, KPI, consistency, promotional spend etc) & launch excellence (quality, KPI and continuous improvement).

 

Leadership & Culture

•        Lead and coordinate cross-functional teams to execute prioritized tasks.

•        Build a high-performance culture, manage recruiting, performance, and coaching; develop critical capabilities and talent pipelines.

•        Attract, develop, and retain top talent; strengthen succession plans and capabilities across the country organization.

•        Role-model Novartis Leadership Expectations, inspire transformation and performance, and demonstrate self-awareness with a growth mindset.

•        Adhere to applicable legislation, SOPs, internal policies, adverse event reporting requirements, and other relevant compliance obligations.

Key performance indicators:

•        Maximization of patient access to brands within Portfolio Unit

•        Successful partnerships and alliances

•        Digital engagement metrics

•        Brand performance and sustainability

•        Diligent budget monitoring

•        Quality and adoption of execution excellence standards

•        Data-driven field performance enablement

•        Impact and utilization of insights, analytics, and digital platforms

•        Effective capability building across the organization

Education:

·       University degree in science or business

·       Advanced degree in bioscience, medicine, business, and/or management is preferred

Languages:

·       English

·       Country language desirable

Experience/Professional Requirement:

•        Extensive experience in leadership positions within the pharmaceutical or life science industry.

•        End-to-end portfolio management of mature brands, including onboarding, LoE planning, and post-LoE patient access retention using late-stage lifecycle tactics.

•        Strong execution excellence, analytics, and digital enablement expertise

•        Solid understanding of Medical Affairs processes and non‑negotiable medical–TA (promotional) boundaries

•        Proven partnership expertise.

•        Regulated digital promotion execution: content governance, channel optimization, compliance, strong market analytics.

•        Track record of leading cross-functional teams (Legal, Finance, Market Access, Regulatory, Supply Chain, CLS) and navigating complex stakeholder environments.

•        Solid track of change management projects and ability to influence without formal authority to drive change in complex organizations

•        Prior experiences across multiple pillars of execution excellence function and ability to partner effectively with subject matter experts and lead the cross-functional/neutral enabling unit.

•        Matrix leadership and talent development: building high-performance, diverse teams; coaching, succession planning, and influencing across complex cross-functional and regional interfaces.

•        Enterprise thinker: Optimizes for total portfolio performance and long-term sustainability.

•        Resource discipline: Operates lean; rigorously aligns spend to investment guidelines and demonstrable ROI.

•        Outcome-oriented: Sets clear KPIs (patient access to portfolio, digital engagement, brand sustainability) and acts on insights.

•        Proven ability to incorporate digital/AI tools as part of daily work.

 

Skills Desired

Cross-Functional Collaboration, Customer Engagement, Customer Insights, Data Analytics, Digital Marketing, Market Research, Media Campaigns, Product Marketing, Stakeholder Engagement, Stakeholder Management, Team Leadership, Waterfall Model