Head of Technology Development

Company Overview:
St. Jude is where those with a passion for making a difference come to break new ground. Located in Memphis, Tennessee, the mission of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is to advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. We are leading the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases.

Position Overview:
The Head of Technology Development is an integral member of St. Jude’s Commercialization & Industry Engagement Team. The team’s purpose is to support St Jude’s mission to reduce the burden of catastrophic pediatric diseases by making innovations accessible. All team members are responsible for stewardship of translation of the organization’s innovations. The team is responsible for leading the translation of innovations to the market through industry partners, licensees, or other reputable organizations capable of making innovations accessible in a timely, efficient, and reliable manner while leading engagements with industry along the innovation continuum from early scientific research collaborations to later stage transactions. The team is also responsible for assessing the market viability of St Jude’s innovation pipeline, prioritizing the translation of innovations that meet the organization’s mission, pursuing pathways for translation of innovations that most effectively enable accessibility, and handling the portfolio management and progress monitoring to oversee timely and efficient translation of innovations. The team holds responsibility for tracking metrics to continually improve innovation management and industry engagement processes and education and communication of innovation management and industry engagement.

This role requires a dynamic and visionary leader to manage the early stages of identification and development of life sciences innovations with market pathways that advance the organization’s mission to reduce the burden of catastrophic pediatric diseases. This role is similar to that of a Vice President of R&D in pharma/biotechnology. It requires a strong background in pharma/biotechnology, a track record of success in drug development, inclusive of the preclinical, clinical, regulatory, and market readiness phases, a proven track record of leadership in the industry, and a passion for advancing healthcare through scientific innovation.

The Head of Technology Development is responsible for leading and executing comprehensive strategies to identify, prioritize, and translate innovations that advance the organization’s efforts to make technologies, innovations, and science developed at St. Jude broadly accessible. Expertise as an early-stage life sciences leader to oversee translational viability, new product development, cross-functional teams, strategic planning, and partner management will be critical in promoting St. Jude’s world-class innovations to a diverse audience.

This position may be eligible for the possibility of remote work.

Job Responsibilities:

• Define vision and strategy for advancing innovations that reduce the burden of catastrophic pediatric diseases to market pathways, along with the VP Industry Engagement & Transactions.
• Oversee the execution of the strategic plan for the translation of innovations to market pathways, in alignment with the mission, along with the VP Industry Engagement & Transactions.
• Lead and inspire a multidisciplinary team of scientists, researchers, and business professionals to achieve the organization’s goals to advance on mission healthcare through the translation of scientific innovation, along with the VP Industry Engagement & Transactions.
• Develop a system to identify innovations with market translation potential and methodologies to determine relative priority for pursuing and developing innovations that meet the organization’s mission for market pathways, along with the VP Industry Engagement & Transactions.
• Oversee the identification of innovations and research efforts with potential to reach market pathways, along with the VP Industry Engagement & Transactions.
• Oversee the conduct of due diligence, including development, market, and regulatory assessments, and other required aspects to determine market feasibility of innovations, along with the VP Industry Engagement & Transactions.
• Once market feasibility is reasonably established for on mission innovations, oversee the creation of a translation plan and budget for consideration by an investment committee.
• Oversee the translation of programs selected for funding by an investment committee.
• Establish and maintain functionally integrated program timelines and prepare and manage program budgets in collaboration with the cross functional team.
• Ensure early, close, and continuous collaboration with the organization’s Clinical, Regulatory, Manufacturing, Legal, Compliance, and other teams for reporting, awareness, smooth handoffs, co-management, and full engagement to achieve consistency, compliance with organizational policies, industry regulations, and ethical standards.
• Use best-in-class program management support to provide end-to-end oversight of the program management for initiating, planning, executing, controlling, reporting, and terminating the integrated development plan and associated functional plans.
• Engage with and act as the primary point of contact for internal stakeholders, conducting research and making discoveries, to drive the successful identification and development of innovations for translation to market pathways.
• Work closely with the researchers, strategic collaborators, and cross-functional teams to actively facilitate teams in defining program strategy, developing integrated program plans, and implementing the plans to meet defined objectives.
• Build and maintain relationships with internal and external key stakeholders and collaborators, including researchers, scientists, doctors, investors, industry partners, and other institutions to optimize outcomes.
• Oversight of external consultants and services engaged to perform work required to translate innovations.
• Represent the organization at industry conferences, events, and with industry partners, investors and entrepreneurs.
• Monitor industry trends and competitive landscape to identify opportunities for growth and innovation.
• Design new processes and supporting business structures and recommend solutions that drive process standardization and simplification across the department to more effectively translate innovations to market pathways.
• As the department strategy evolves, prepare alternative development and risk management scenarios, program updates and options and recommendations through proactive communication to the teams and senior leaders.
• Drive decision making, facilitate issue resolution, problem-solving, risk management, and contingency planning.
• When and as determined necessary, oversight for the recruitment and establishment of R&D facilities to incubate and accelerate translation of innovations internally.
• Define overall objectives, scope, plans, resource planning and budgeting, and metrics for tracking progress.
• Provide strategic insights to senior leadership around roadmap and management of innovation development and institutional objectives.
• Provide input into overall budget and variance management for programs.
• Build systemic approaches for engagement and governance with external collaborators.
• Recruit, coach and develop individuals and ensure they have rich career experiences and rotational opportunities.
• Perform other duties as assigned to meet the goals and objectives of the department and institution.
• Maintains regular and predictable attendance.

Minimum Education and/or Training:

• Ph.D. in Life Sciences or MD degree required.

Minimum Experience:

• Twenty  (20) years’ experience in the life sciences industry and ten (10) years’ experience in executive leaderships roles with substantial leadership and program implementation experience.
• Demonstrated experience leading multiple complex program(s) keeping the impact to the organization in mind.
• Strategic thinker with excellent problem-solving skills and an ability to influence all levels of the organization.
• Has built and maintained an extensive industry network in the life sciences industry.
• Experience developing and bringing rare disease therapies to market.
• Experience overseeing R&D, CMC, Quality, clinical trials, regulatory, and manufacturing of life sciences innovations.
• Significant experience managing patent portfolios and creating novel IP.
• Demonstrated experience in establishing successful scientific and industry collaborations.
• Demonstrated experience in strategic planning, prioritizing of programs and defining approaches for implementation.
• Significant experience in risk management, issue resolution, resource management, and financial tracking across multiple programs.
• Significant experience in operational management, budget planning and management through multiple diverse programs.
• Experience building systems, tools, and processes to leverage program synergies and drive continuous improvement in quality and consistency of programs.
• Experience managing program managers/teams with direct reporting.
• Proven performance in prior life sciences industry executive role.
• Early-stage life sciences executive start-up experience required.
• Entrepreneurial, self-starter with a proven track record of success in fast-paced and demanding environment and strong desire to “make things happen”, including a results-oriented work ethic and a positive, can-do attitude.
• An ability to take hands-on, “roll up your sleeves” approach toward achieving results.

Special Skills, Knowledge and Abilities:

• Demonstrable experience leading strategic programs from initiation to completion, including resource management, and collaboration with internal cross-functional teams and external partners preferred.
• Setting Strategy: The inclination to seek and analyze data from a variety of sources to support decisions and to align others with the organization's overall strategy.
• An entrepreneurial and creative approach to developing new, innovative ideas that will stretch the organization and expand the boundaries within the industry.
• Executing for Results: Comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty; the ability to adapt nimbly and lead others through complex situations.
• A prudent risk-taker who seeks data and input from others to foresee possible threats or unintended circumstances from decisions; someone who takes smart risks.
• A leader who is viewed by others as having a high degree of integrity and forethought in their approach to making decisions; the ability to act in a transparent and consistent manner while always taking into account what is best for the organization.
• Proactively tracks industry trends and emerging regulatory/compliance practices.
• Proactively builds and maintains key relationships within and outside the organization.
• Relationships and Influence:
• Demonstrates confidence in others, is team-focused, and celebrates success.
• Naturally connects and builds strong relationships with others, demonstrating strong emotional intelligence and an ability to communicate clearly and persuasively.
• An ability to inspire trust and followership in others through compelling influence, powerful charisma, passion in their beliefs, and active drive.
• Creates a sense of purpose/meaning for the team that generates followership beyond their own personality and engages others to the greater purpose for the organization as a whole.

No Search Firms

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. Please do not call or email. All resumes submitted by search firms to any employee or other representative at St. Jude via email, the internet or in any form and/or method without a valid written search agreement in place and approved by HR will result in no fee being paid in the event the candidate is hired by St. Jude.