Senior Director, Head of Alliance Management - Pharma Enterprise Accounts

Reporting to the Vice President of Commercial Operations, Ginkgo seeks an experienced leader for the Pharma Enterprise Accounts Alliance Management team. As head of this team, you will both define the vision for this emerging team, and lead efforts to manage Ginkgo’s biggest and most strategically important relationships in the therapeutics and vaccines space. In your leadership role, your efforts will span both individual contributions as a senior Alliance Manager and management of Alliance Management team members, and you will interface frequently with stakeholders across Ginkgo and the teams of our partners.

Responsibilities

In your capacity as team leader:

• You will help establish the vision and refine the role, objectives and approaches of this team
• You will lead a team of alliance managers focused on our portfolio of pharma enterprise accounts
• You will be responsible for a diverse and complex portfolio of alliances, comprising of large, multinational pharma partners, with multiple ongoing projects per partnership
• You will be based in Boston, MA with 10-20% overnight travel availability In your capacity as an alliance manager:
• You will directly manage some of Ginkgo’s most strategic biopharma partnerships
• You will lead a broad spectrum of activities in support of overall alliance success, including acting as the overall relationship holder, driver and/or facilitator of key decisions, and driver of communications both internally and externally.
• You already have and/or will build and maintain relationships with key personnel both internally and with alliance partner
• You already have and/or will build deep expertise on our partners, including their strategy, value drivers, financials, competitors, organizational structure, etc.
• You will lead cross-functional teams in preparing for and facilitating consistent internal and external communications and partner interactions.
• You will provide thoughtful direction and counsel to team members on strategy and approach based on your deep understanding of the projects and partners
• You will prioritize issues and brainstorm solutions to relationship issues proactively, as well conduct post-mortem analyses to identify and implement proactive mitigation strategies to minimize crisis management situations
• You will be the primary partnership liaison internally, providing proactive, succinct, and targeted updates about the program, including to Ginkgo executive leadership.
• Regularly communicate with partner counterparts to engage on the various day-to-day issues and opportunities arising from the collaboration
• You will be consulted and actively involved in deal negotiations
• You will partner closely with Business Development on overall partnership priorities, including ideating, developing, and championing new alliances in alignment with the R&D strategy

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor's degree with 12+ years of relevant experience (of which 2 can be from MBA or PhD, or 1 can be from a Masters)
• 7 years of Commercial experience, of which at least 5 are as a pharma or biotech alliance manager or partner relationship manager
• 3+ years of experience as a team leader strongly preferred
• Drug development knowledge with good understanding of other functions relevant to the position
• Applied know-how of key alliance management principles including how to understand/apply contract language, escalate/mitigate issues, and demonstrate creative problem-solving
• Excellent interpersonal skills, executive poise and EQ, with ability to lead, engage, focus, negotiate, and resolve conflict internally and externally; demonstrated conflict management skills including de-escalation, mediation, and bargaining preferred
• Demonstrated ability to work independently, proactively and with agility in a complex, matrixed environment, dealing well with ambiguity, building internal alignment, influencing others and managing differences effectively
• Proven ability to identify, prioritize & resolve key project and partner issues
• Demonstrated ability to combine attention to detail with big picture perspective, operationalizing via excellence in project management and effectively managing multiple projects/priorities
• Must be fluent in English (written and spoken)
• Demonstrated competence in written and verbal communication