Clinical Operations Head

At Roche you can show up as yourself, embraced for the unique qualities you bring. Our culture encourages personal expression, open dialogue, and genuine connections, where you are valued, accepted and respected for who you are, allowing you to thrive both personally and professionally. This is how we aim to prevent, stop and cure diseases and ensure everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Join Roche, where every voice matters. The Position The Opportunity The Clinical Operations Country Head (CH) provides strategic leadership and is accountable for optimizing country operations to achieve organizational goals. This role leads the Country Leadership Team to drive effective execution of the country's strategic objectives and portfolio, ensuring compliance, resource efficiency, and continuous improvement in collaboration with Clinical Research Organizations (CROs) and may also participate/ lead PDG strategic initiatives. The role focuses on building strong stakeholder relationships to facilitate operations and advance clinical research, while prioritizing talent development and fostering a high-performing team. In hub roles, the position shares accountabilities for affiliated countries, providing strategic and operational guidance. The role may also encompass vendor oversight responsibilities, ensuring effective CRO partnerships, issue resolution, and communication with relevant stakeholders. Main Responsibilities 1. Leadership and Strategic Direction - Country Leadership Team: Lead the Country Leadership Team, comprising members with clearly defined accountabilities across key organizational pillars - Country Strategy and Portfolio: Accountable for the development, implementation, and delivery of the overall country strategy and portfolio, aligning with global organizational objectives and priorities. - Strategic Collaboration: Work together with internal stakeholders such as P&C, General Manager (GM), Country Medical Director (CMD), and legal on country-specific, non-TA-specific issues. Partner with other Country/Area Heads and Global Leaders to enhance portfolio delivery and execution across Clinical Operations, ensuring alignment and synergy. - Global Alignment: Engage with global TA/CoE/APO Leaders, when appropriate, to facilitate effective portfolio delivery, ensuring all activities are conducted in accordance with the global PDG strategy and One Pharma strategy. - Portfolio Oversight: Maintain comprehensive portfolio awareness, proactively identifying and addressing any in-country priority conflicts to ensure efficient resource allocation and optimal outcomes. 2. Operational Excellence and Compliance - Local Compliance: Ensure that the country operates in full compliance with all local requirements, including legal, financial, and ethical standards and practices. - Resource Management: Ensure the efficient and responsible use of resources and budget, maximizing value and minimizing waste. - Productivity and Efficiency: Identify and implement strategies and tactics in partnership with the CROs to drive continuous productivity and efficiency gains, fostering a high-performing organizational culture. - Data-driven performance optimisation: Continuously monitor and optimize performance and efficiency with a data-driven mindset, leveraging established KPIs and metrics to measure and enhance country performance. - Process Improvement and Innovation: Champion and implement process improvements in PDG and in partnership with the CROs to enhance operational effectiveness and streamline workflows. 3. External Stakeholder Management and Relations - Build and maintain strong relationships with the CRO partners and external stakeholders, including Health Authorities, Ethics Committees, and Industry Groups, to influence policy and actively drive initiatives to strengthen clinical research within the country. - Local Environment and Legislation: Maintain a solid understanding of the local environment and legislation governing the conduct of clinical trials in the country, ensuring compliance and effective operations. 4. People Leadership and Development - Driving department-wide engagement by fostering a culture of collaboration, inclusivity, and high performance while championing inclusion and belonging. Inspire, motivate, and develop talent within the team, ensuring a focus on individual growth and leadership development to build a strong, elevated talent pipeline aligned with organizational objectives. - Regular year-round assessment of performance, contributions, and impact and providing feedback, coaching, and performance management. - Manages direct reports, including other people leaders. - Leading by example in demonstrating and championing inclusive behaviours in your team, PDG, PD, and the Roche Enterprise. Provide opportunities for growth and development for all team members and address any barriers that may exist. Who you are? Qualifications & Experience - Degree (MD, PhD, MA/MS, BA/BS) in life sciences or equivalent. Postgraduate degree or master’s degree highly desirable. - 10+ years experience in the pharmaceutical or related industry. - Experience in drug development is essential. - Understanding of end-to-end clinical trial processes, and strong knowledge of clinical trial regulations and guidelines. Skills and competencies - Fluency in written and spoken English is mandatory. - Strategic Thinking: Demonstrates proficiency in strategic planning, with a strong ability to analyze complex information, identify key relationships and dependencies, and formulate effective long-term plans. Exercises sound judgment in selecting optimal courses of action based on rigorous logical analysis, factual evidence, resource availability, situational constraints, and alignment with organizational values. - Delegation and Empowerment: Effectively identifies and leverages opportunities to accelerate results and foster team development by strategically assigning tasks and decision-making responsibilities to individuals and teams. Ensures clarity by establishing clear boundaries, setting explicit expectations, providing necessary support, and implementing consistent follow-up mechanisms. - Leadership: Exhibits strong leadership capabilities, with the ability to inspire, motivate, and guide individuals and teams towards achieving common goals. - Demonstrates a proactive approach to fostering a positive and productive work environment. - Communication: Possesses excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, enabling clear, concise, and effective conveyance of information to diverse audiences. Adept at active listening and adapting communication styles to suit different situations. - Customer Centricity: Demonstrates a strong customer-centric mindset and behaviors, focused on building positive, productive, and sustainable relationships with both internal and external stakeholders. Prioritizes understanding and meeting customer needs and expectations. - Adaptability and Prioritization: Exhibits a high degree of adaptability, with the ability to effectively manage multiple priorities and operate successfully in a fast-paced, dynamic, and evolving environment. Demonstrates strong prioritization and time management skills. - Collaboration: Possesses exceptional collaboration skills, with a proven ability to work effectively within cross-functional teams and cultivate strong, collaborative relationships with colleagues and partners. Who we are A healthier future drives us to innovate. Together, more than 100’000 employees across the globe are dedicated to advance science, ensuring everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Our efforts result in more than 26 million people treated with our medicines and over 30 billion tests conducted using our Diagnostics products. We empower each other to explore new possibilities, foster creativity, and keep our ambitions high, so we can deliver life-changing healthcare solutions that make a global impact. Let’s build a healthier future, together. Roche is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We believe it’s urgent to deliver medical solutions right now – even as we develop innovations for the future. We are passionate about transforming patients’ lives. We are courageous in both decision and action. And we believe that good business means a better world. That is why we come to work each day. We commit ourselves to scientific rigor, unassailable ethics, and access to medical innovations for all. We do this today to build a better tomorrow. We are proud of who we are, what we do, and how we do it. We are many, working as one across functions, across companies, and across the world. We are Roche.