Associate Director, R&D Portfolio Operations & Insights

Position Summary

The Associate Director of R&D Portfolio Operations & Insights will lead the design, standardization, and continuous improvement of portfolio management processes across the R&D organization.

This role is responsible for enabling integrated planning, improving predictability, and driving portfolio transparency through scalable PMO frameworks, data infrastructure, analytics, and reporting.

This individual will serve as a strategic operations partner to R&D, Finance, and PMO Leadership, ensuring there is a single-source of truth to enable portfolio insights and decisions.

Key Responsibilities

Portfolio Governance & PMO Standardization

• Design and implement standardized PMO processes, tools, and governance frameworks across R&D.

• Establish integrated planning processes that connect strategy, resource planning, timelines, and execution milestones.

• Drive adoption of best practices for stage-gate governance, risk management, and cross-functional alignment.

• Lead continuous improvement initiatives to enhance operational rigor, predictability, and accountability.

Integrated Planning & Predictability

• Develop and maintain enterprise-level portfolio planning models that enable scenario planning and trade-off analysis.

• Partner with R&D, Engineering, Regulatory, Finance to align roadmap assumptions and resource forecasts.

• Implement forecasting and tracking mechanisms to improve milestone predictability and delivery confidence.

• Monitor portfolio performance and proactively surface risks, dependencies, and capacity constraints.

Portfolio Management Systems & Data Infrastructure

• Own and evolve the R&D portfolio management database, ensuring data accuracy, integrity, and usability.

• Define data standards, KPIs, and portfolio health metrics.

• Lead vision for automated dashboards and trending analyses to provide real-time insights to leadership.

• Enable scalable reporting capabilities through tools and systems optimization.

Portfolio Insights, Prioritization & Reporting

• Create portfolio views to support investment decisions, resource allocation, and strategic trade-offs.

• Work with PMO portfolio leads to develop executive-ready reporting packages (monthly/quarterly) highlighting progress, risks, and trends.

• Translate complex data into clear, actionable insights for senior stakeholders.

Leadership

• Serve as a thought partner to PMO and R&D leadership on operational effectiveness.

• Provide key inputs into cross-functional portfolio review forums and governance meetings.

• Influence without authority across scientific, clinical, regulatory, and commercial product management teams.

• Lead and mentor portfolio operations team members as the function scales.

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QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor’s degree in Biology or equivalent.  MS or PhD in Biological Sciences preferred.

• Minimum of 10 years of program management experience in biotech space and educational background in molecular biology or genetics testing.

• Certification or formal training in Program or Project Management and experience using resource management tools is a big plus.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES:

• Strong knowledge of creative workflows, project management tools and processes.

• Experience compiling GANTT charts and project plans.

• Experience with product development.

• Familiar with design control is a plus.

• Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to establish and build productive relationships.

• Excellent communication within the project teams as well as with diverse stakeholders, including top level management.

• Excellent organization and time management/multi-tasking skills (comfortable in an ambiguous and fast-paced environment, operating at both strategic and tactical levels).