Senior Director, Enterprise Architecture — Research & Development

Job description

Job Description Our IT organization delivers efficient, reusable technology solutions that accelerate business outcomes. Within Global Technology, the Enterprise Architecture team serves as a critical strategic partner — connecting technology investments to measurable business results. As AI rapidly reshapes pharmaceutical R&D — from molecule discovery and clinical trial design to regulatory intelligence and real-world evidence — we need strategic technology leadership more than ever. We are seeking a Senior Director to lead Enterprise Architecture engagement for R&D, serving as a trusted enterprise technology advisor to R&D leadership and a strategic partner to business-facing IT partners across the division. This is not a traditional architecture role. It is a senior leadership position for someone who deeply understands the science, operations, and business of pharmaceutical R&D, and who can connect divisional outcomes to enterprise capabilities, platforms, standards, and technology direction. The right candidate will help R&D leaders understand how enterprise technology investments — including AI and advanced analytics — can accelerate their pipeline, compress timelines, improve decision quality, and unlock new capabilities, while ensuring those investments are grounded in enterprise strategy, responsible AI principles, and measurable outcomes. Organizational Context: This role is part of the Enterprise Architecture organization within Global Technology and leads Enterprise Architecture engagement for R&D. It operates as a trusted enterprise technology advisor to the Architecture Leadership Team and R&D senior leadership, and as a complementary strategic partner to business-facing IT partners. The role connects R&D priorities, outcomes, and capability needs to enterprise capabilities, platforms, standards, investments, and technology direction. It also represents R&D demand and strategic context within Enterprise Architecture so that enterprise decisions and capabilities better support divisional outcomes. The role advises, guides, and aligns where enterprise or cross-divisional implications exist, partnering with divisional architecture, product, domain, and delivery leaders who drive realization within R&D. Key Responsibilities Trusted Enterprise Advisor to R&D Leadership - Develop trusted relationships with R&D senior leadership and the Architecture Leadership Team, providing an enterprise technology perspective that connects divisional priorities to enterprise capabilities, platforms, standards, investments, and future technology direction. - Advise R&D leaders on enterprise technology opportunities, dependencies, risks, tradeoffs, and cross-divisional implications that may influence divisional outcomes. - Help R&D leaders understand how enterprise capabilities, shared platforms, and technology investments can accelerate business objectives while reducing duplication, risk, and long-term complexity. - Bring visibility to enterprise implications and cross-divisional dependencies early enough to inform planning and investment discussions before choices are locked. - Represent R&D priorities, demand signals, and capability needs in enterprise technology and architecture discussions so they shape enterprise strategy, platforms, and investments. Accelerate Business Outcomes - Engage R&D leadership early to understand material outcomes, future demand, and enterprise implications across capability areas (discovery, lab operations, preclinical, clinical development, regulatory, pharmacovigilance, clinical supplies manufacturing). - Connect divisional needs to enterprise capabilities, platforms, data, and shared dependencies — helping resolve enterprise barriers that could delay R&D outcomes. - Drive AI acceleration across R&D: identify high-value use cases, prioritize AI investments by business impact, and ensure strategic alignment over fragmentation. - Evaluate emerging technologies and industry trends (AI/ML, generative AI, Cloud, SaaS, advanced analytics, modern data integration) and translate them into actionable enterprise strategies that serve R&D. - Bring a total-cost-of-ownership and business-outcomes lens to investment decisions, ensuring choices are evidence-based, priority-aligned, and sustainable at scale. Make Technology Decisions Fast, Transparent, and Durable - Own the quality and traceability of enterprise architecture decisions affecting R&D — ensuring decisions, rationale, dependencies, implications, and outcomes are visible and reusable. - Clarify which decisions require enterprise alignment and which require senior governance, providing constructive guidance rooted in business context. - Translate recurring enterprise decisions into standards, patterns, reference architectures, and self-service guidance — including responsible AI guardrails. - Drive connected, trusted enterprise architecture data that improves planning, decision intelligence, reuse, optimization, and self-service access to architecture knowledge. Optimize Through Reuse, Standardization, and Simplification - Create visibility into cross-divisional reuse, platform leverage, duplication, lifecycle risk, and technical debt opportunities relevant to R&D. - Quantify enterprise value and implications in partnership with portfolio, finance, product, and architecture leaders. - Help convert agreed opportunities into roadmaps with clear owners — measuring opportunity visibility, reuse, complexity reduction, and realized enterprise value. - Identify opportunities for shared platforms across divisions (manufacturing quality, animal health, and other business units) and champion value-centric technology decisions prioritized by business outcomes. Shape and Realize the Future of Technology - Bring R&D future demand and market signals into enterprise technology foresight — shaping enterprise capability and platform direction where R&D needs have broader relevance. - Maintain an active network of peer organizations,