Director, R&D IT Operational Excellence

Director, R&D IT Operational Excellence Mississauga, ON IT Hybrid Work- on average 3 days/week from office The Director, R&D IT Operational Excellence is a senior leadership role responsible for driving governance, operational performance, workforce strategy, financial stewardship, organizational effectiveness, and change adoption across R&D IT. As a member of the Operational Excellence organization, this role partners with Capability, Portfolio, Finance, HR, Strategy, and Quality leaders to ensure disciplined execution of strategic priorities, effective decision-making, transparent performance management, and alignment to enterprise objectives. The role serves as the operational leader for assigned R&D IT capability portfolios, overseeing governance, planning, workforce and capacity management, performance reporting, financial oversight, and continuous improvement. The Director connects strategy to execution by establishing scalable, data-driven operating models that improve organizational effectiveness and support AstraZeneca's digital, data, and AI ambitions. In addition, this role leads enterprise-wide change management across R&D IT, communications, employee engagement, and AI enablement initiatives that accelerate technology adoption, strengthen organizational capability, and enhance the employee experience across R&D IT. What you'll do Operational Excellence & Governance Lead operational excellence activities across assigned R&D IT capability portfolios, ensuring alignment to organizational objectives and enterprise governance standards. Partner with senior leaders within R&D IT to identify and assess operational inefficiencies, prioritize, drive process standardization and optimization, automation, and AI-enabled improvements that increase organizational effectiveness, consistency, scalability, and employee productivity. Partner with R&D IT Operations Leads to facilitate process standardization across functional areas, fostering a collaborative, one-team approach. Drive operational discipline through governance reviews, compliance monitoring, risk management, and corrective action planning. Provide regular reporting against targets, broken down by functional area, and partner with stakeholders to course-correct where needed. Lead operational cadences including but not limited to conducting business reviews, governance forums, operational reviews, and planning activities, including defining agenda and recapping decisions and meeting minutes. Build strong partnerships across Finance, HR, SP&Q, Portfolio Excellence, Enterprise Functions, and broader R&D organizations. Influence stakeholders across a complex, matrix environment to achieve organizational objectives and drive sustainable outcomes. Performance Management & Executive Reporting Own development and consolidation of business, R&D IT and capability scorecards, frameworks, and executive performance reporting. Provide narrative and speaking-note support for senior stakeholders, including presentation materials for executive-level review and quarterly performance storytelling. Establish, review and maintain operational health indicators & dashboards, KPIs, OKRs, and executive reporting mechanisms. Translate complex operational, financial, workforce, portfolio, and AI adoption data into concise, actionable insights for senior leadership. Establish & leverage existing reporting frameworks that improve organizational visibility, accountability, and decision-making. Supports annual and multi-year planning activities including Mid-Term Planning (MTP), Long-Term Planning (LTP), business planning cycles, strategic roadmaps, and investment prioritization. Workforce Strategy, Capacity & Resource Management Support workforce planning activities across assigned portfolios, ensuring workforce capacity aligns with strategic priorities and delivery objectives. Oversee organizational headcount governance, including permanent employees and Outside Service Providers (OSPs). Adhere to standards and onitor workforce utilization, organizational capacity, AI and digital skill demand trends, and future capability requirements to proactively identify workforce risks and opportunities. Lead workforce readiness initiatives focused on AI literacy, digital capability development, and adoption of emerging technologies across R&D IT Support long-term sustainability goals, including but not limited to reducing our carbon footprint. Financial Stewardship & Business Operations Support capability leaders and business partners in business case development, investment planning, value realization assessments, and funding prioritization decisions. Lead operational oversight of budget performance against plan, financial governance processes, investment tracking, resource-related expenditures, and recommend corrective actions where necessary. Ensure compliance with AstraZeneca financial policies, governance standards, and planning requirements. Essential for the role Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Technology, Life Sciences, Engineering, or related discipline. Experience in senior stakeholder management and developing executive-level dashboards, KPIs, scorecards, and operational reporting, 5-7 years+ experience in operational excellence governance, business operations, organizational effectiveness roles, financial management, and performance reporting Experience measuring business outcomes and organizational value derived from digital, automation, and AI investments. Experience leading cross-functional continuous improvement and organizational transformation initiatives. Strong analytical and data-driven decision-making skills. Excellent written, verbal, facilitation, and executive communication skills.