Associate Director - Launch Operations

Location: Plainsboro
Posted on: June 23, 2025

Job Description:

About the Department Our Marketing & Patient Solutions group creates and delivers human-centered experiences, where innovation meets customer-centricity, driving the ultimate experience for our patients. Our focus extends beyond transactions to craft experiences as one fully integrated, aligned and connected organization that puts empathy at the center, powered by insight and foresight. We develop an end-to-end approach to strategy, focusing on every touchpoint that impacts our customers. We leverage data and insights to inform our decision-making processes, ensuring that our strategies are rooted in a deep understanding of customer needs and behaviors. Our 'test and learn’ mindset and approach enables us to iterate rapidly and refine our strategies based on real-world results. We are building an intentional team culture that is made up of diverse skillsets, united by the shared belief that reinvention and learning is what fuels continuous growth. Do you get excited about exploring the unknown? Does the idea of driving value through human-centered design pull you in? Are you ready to experiment with us? The Position The Associate Director - Launch Operations will play a pivotal role in managing the launch process with the therapeutic area leads to ensure alignment with organizational objectives and industry best practices. This role will foster innovative approaches and processes to enhance business performance and drive sustainable growth across the organization. This role involves implementing enterprise capabilities, best practices, processes, and governance across the portfolio. The focus of this role will be in support of the diabetes or obesity or cardiovascular emerging therapies therapeutic areas, to guide the planning and execution of the launch to ensure market readiness and optimize commercial success through the coordination of cross-functional teams. This individual will have a proven track record in program management, coupled with expertise in launch excellence methodologies and practices. This role is critical in ensuring that new initiatives are executed flawlessly and contribute positively to business growth and success. Relationships Reports to Executive Director Launch Excellence. Collaborates with cross-functional teams, including brand marketing, enterprise insights, finance, HR, market access, supply chain, and sales to ensure projects align with overall business goals and operational needs. Works to understand challenges, gather insights for process improvements, and implement new procedures. Works closely with analytics to collaborate on operational analytics initiatives, establishing governance and consistency across projects. Essential Functions Program/Project Management: Oversee program/project management for launches &special projects, ensuring alignment with organizational goals and objectives. Define project scope, objectives, and deliverables, and establish project plans, timelines, milestones, and measurement to drive successful execution. Drive stakeholders for effective project management and realization of objectives in timely manner given time constraints of launches Launch Planning: Collaborate with Assoc Dir-Launch Excellence to develop and manage holistic, strategic launch plans, including supporting processes and a governance structure. Collaborate closely with the therapeutic area/brand leads and teams to provide connectivity across functions, provide guidance on commercial optimization strategies and market readiness. Oversee launch from L-30 through successful launch to L6 months, and build muscle into launch and drive accountability and ownership on launch performance Market Readiness Planning: Support development of a consistent and robust approach to market readiness in collaboration with the therapeutic area. Oversee and ensure the readiness of launches by monitoring key indicators and success factors within the market. Take proactive measures to address any challenges or roadblocks in the launch process. Coordinate interlinked launches across therapeutic areas or indications, identify synergies, and risks with mitigation plans. In addition, the role will drive alignment of commercial readiness activities with regulatory, medical, supply, market access and sales Launch readiness governance: Track milestones and escalate issues at both asset and portfolio level Enterprise Capability Development: Contribute to launch excellence frameworks, tools and methodologies across the organization to ensure asset, market and enterprise readiness. Contribute to processes and governance structure to support new launches Budget Management: Work closely with finance and brand strategy to define the budget allocated for TA and brand activities. Secure global funding and assess progress during pre-launch Risk Management: Proactively raises risks within the brand/launch plan to brand and marketing leads. Uses business and launch expertise to inform risk mitigation strategies and assesses potential resourcing needs Process and Operations Management: Work with internal launch collaborators to ensure successful and timely launch process management. Oversee completion of launch readiness tasks, ensuring a standardized approach across brands and that resourcing is in place to support launch strategy initiatives. Owns launch roadmap to support launch success Process Optimization: Drive initiatives focused on continuous improvement of launch execution and marketing processes. Identify areas for enhancement and implementing processes to optimize TA/brand performance and launch outcomes based on marketing activities. Leverage innovative tools and approaches to streamline workflows and enhance ROI and performance Best Practice Integration and Continuous improvement: Capture lessons learned and best practices to apply to future brands and launches. Collaborate with internal cross functional stakeholders to incorporate these into marketing strategies and execution across the portfolio. Develop launch playbook to cover interdependencies and key changes to the Cardiometabolic market landscape. Implement launch excellence frameworks, including Pre-Launch and Post-Launch performance assessments to gather learnings and drive continuous improvement Physical Requirements Approximately 10-20% overnight travel. Qualifications Requires a Bachelor’s degree or Equivalent and 10 years of experience, including demonstrated history in business excellence, launch excellence, project management, program management, project launch, or related roles preferably within the pharmaceutical industry. Required to be on-site at Plainsboro Township, New Jersey campus 3 - 4 days a week, remaining 1 – 2 days can be virtual Strong knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry, including competitive market dynamics, and trends, especially within diabetes required Demonstrated success in commercial planning and launching products, including driving effective launch strategy, and identifying and implementing best practices required Management Consulting experience from consulting firms or in a company’s internal consulting organization within the pharmaceutical industry preferred Experience in launching new brands to market is preferred Lean Six Sigma Certification is preferred Experience with local and global operations within life sciences preferred Strategic Launch Planning, Analytical skills, Execution and follow-through skills required Experience managing competing priorities and ensuring timely delivery of project tasks, preferably within a product launch Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with ability to influence senior leaders Outstanding planning and organizational skills with exceptionally high attention to quality of detail and proven track record of results and follow up Demonstrated collaboration skills in leading cross-functional teams required Excellent leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence and align cross-functional teams towards common goals Embodies leadership behaviours, including authenticity, will, empathy, decisiveness, and driving focus and simplicity The base compensation range for this position is $ 148,290 to $ 259,510. Base compensation is determined based on a number of factors. This position is also eligible for a company bonus based on individual and company performance. Novo Nordisk offers long-term incentive compensation and or company vehicles depending on the position's level or other company factors. Employees are also eligible to participate in Company employee benefit programs including medical, dental and vision coverage; life insurance; disability insurance; 401(k) savings plan; flexible spending accounts; employee assistance program; tuition reimbursement program; and voluntary benefits such as group legal, critical illness, identity theft protection, pet insurance and auto/home insurance. The Company also offers time off pursuant to its sick time policy, flex-able vacation policy, and parental leave policy. We commit to an inclusive recruitment process and equality of opportunity for all our job applicants. At Novo Nordisk we recognize that it is no longer good enough to aspire to be the best company in the world. We need to aspire to be the best company for the world and we know that this is only possible with talented employees with diverse perspectives, backgrounds and cultures. We are therefore committed to creating an inclusive culture that celebrates the diversity of our employees, the patients we serve and communities we operate in. Together, we’re life changing. Novo Nordisk is an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by local, state or federal laws, rules or regulations. If you are interested in applying to Novo Nordisk and need special assistance or an accommodation to apply, please call us at 1-855-411-5290. This contact is for accommodation requests only and cannot be used to inquire about the status of applications.

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