Associate Director, Strategic Planning

Job Description

Corporate Strategic PMO provides enterprise-level governance and strategic project management to ensure the successful delivery and realization of the company’s strategy and highest strategic priorities. The role partners with senior leaders to translate strategy and strategic priorities into executable tasks, drive cross-functional alignment and delivery discipline, surface opportunities and risks early, and provide insights that accelerate high-quality management decisions.

Core responsibilities

Corporate Strategic Priorities QBR governance

• Translate enterprise strategic priorities into clear QBR narratives and measurable OKRs with chapter owners; ensure consistent interpretation and alignment across functions.
• Lead quarterly QBR planning and assessment; run the governance cadence and cross-functional alignments, decision-making; surface cross-BU dependencies, constraints, delivery risks and support needed.
• Identify emerging opportunities and leadership-ready strategic insights by synthesizing complex inputs to enable timely, high-quality management decisions.
• Establish a closed-loop feedback mechanism with key stakeholders; continuously improve QBR governance effectiveness, strategic fit, and execution quality.

Corporate Strategic Initiatives Realization

• Lead end-to-end strategic project management for corporate initiatives—set up the team, define scope and success metrics, build integrated plans and governance, manage interdependencies, and ensure disciplined delivery aligned to corporate priorities.
• Drive value realization by identifying opportunities, gaps, and cross-functional synergies; convert delivery signals into insights to accelerate high-quality leadership decisions.
• Own risks, issues, and critical path items through disciplined RAID management; drive early escalation, mitigation, and contingency planning to protect outcomes and timelines.
   

Agile Project Management Legacy & Capability Building

• Institutionalize enterprise agile delivery by establishing a professional agile project management framework, standards, and toolkit that is scalable and reusable.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or above; PMP / Scrum certification is a strong plus.
• 5+ years of project management experience within a pharmaceutical company (or closely related biotech/healthcare environment), with exposure to cross-functional stakeholders and regulated operations.
• Proven track record leading enterprise projects and transformational changes in complex, matrixed organizations, balancing speed, quality, and governance.\\
• Executive stakeholder management: influence across functions and communicate clearly with senior leadership using concise, decision-oriented narratives.
• Change leadership: design end‑to‑end adoption strategies, mobilize stakeholders, and build sustainable change capability.
• Strong command of PM tooling and data-driven governance; hands-on experience applying agile delivery methods in complex projects.
• Leadership maturity: strategic thinking, structured problem solving, influencing without authority, resilience, and strong compliance mindset.
• Expertise in strategy-to-execution operating models, project governance.
• Fluent in English and Mandarin for effective communication.

Required Skills:

Preferred Skills:

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Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company.  No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails. 

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