Strategic Insights Vice President

Strategic Insights Lead 

Do you want to be part of an inclusive team that works to develop innovative therapies for patients? Every day, we are driven to develop and deliver innovative and effective new medicines to patients and physicians.  If you want to be part of this exciting work, you belong at Astellas!

Astellas Pharma Inc. is a pharmaceutical company conducting business in more than 70 countries around the world. We are committed to turning innovative science into medical solutions that bring value and hope to patients and their families. Keeping our focus on addressing unmet medical needs and conducting our business with ethics and integrity enables us to improve the health of people throughout the world. For more information on Astellas, please visit our website at www.astellas.com.

This position is based in Northbrook, Illinois. Remote work from certain states may be permitted in accordance with Astellas’ Responsible Flexibility Guidelines. Candidates interested in remote work are encouraged to apply. 

Purpose:

The Strategic Insights Lead is a senior leader reporting to the Head, Customer Engagement Excellence. This leader is both visionary and results driven with a track record of success transforming similar organizations into customer focused teams delivering critical “run the business” insights – e.g.  market intelligence, competitive insights, and forecasting - while building leading capabilities for the future. Global Insights function is core to our ability to deliver growth, enable innovation, and drive operational excellence across all regions and therapeutic areas.

This role will be accountable for building people capabilities covering a broad range of activities at the global, regional and local levels that include but are not limited to brand team performance, competitive intelligence, customer insights, forecasting, impact analyses, and omnichannel execution. This leader brings a mix of advance technical skills along with an innate ability to coach and influence team members on ways to work with a variety of stakeholders – e.g. marketing, medical affairs, market access, global brand strategy, corporate strategy, new product portfolio, finance, development - while consistently delivering results. 

This leader will take pride in people development. With a team of ~100 across 26 regions/markets, the Strategic Insights Lead will be expected to continuously enhance the performance through technical skill improvements, stakeholder management, coaching and thought leadership development. Their teams support the insight and analytics of stakeholders in markets and above, requiring this leader to operate at levels of the organization and across the brand life cycle. 

Essential Job Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership 

• Define and execute the global vision for insights and aligned with corporate strategy and long-term growth objectives.
• Serve as a strategic advisor to executive leadership, enabling data-informed decision-making across market, market access, medical affairs, new product portfolio, global brand, finance and corporate functions.
• Identify opportunities to automate reporting, forecasting, and insight generation.
• Thought leader responsible for defining the standards, processes and future capabilities needed to enhance our use of insights leading to decisions that better informed by data
• Interfaces closely with other teams across local, regional and global teams including local brand teams, asset maximization teams and hubs to ensure best practices and top skills are applied to key activities

Value Delivery Insights 

• Oversee global forecasting, performance metrics, HCP/patient journey analysis, customer insights and competitive intelligence.
• Build and evolve robust capabilities in primary and secondary market research, behavioural analytics, and predictive modelling.
• Partner with global brand leaders to support pipeline prioritization, launch excellence, and lifecycle management through insights

Local Brand Team / Market Insights 

• Oversee all local brand team insight resources including but not limited to, forecasting, performance metrics, HCP/patient journey analysis, omnichannel execution, customer insights and competitive intelligence.
• Lead and own (end to end) the development, implementation and continuous improvement of standardized KPIs, dashboards, and performance measurement frameworks to evaluate marketing, sales, and patient engagement initiatives.
• Collaborate with local operational excellence teams to meet the needs of the affiliate while maintaining consistency and comparability where possible

Team & Capability Development 

• Attract, develop, and retain top-tier talent across geographies and disciplines.
• Lead and mentor a high-performing, global team of insights professionals across geographies.
• Foster a culture of curiosity, innovation, accountability, and cross-functional collaboration.
• Scale global platforms, processes, and tools to enable value delivery-wide access to timely and trusted insights.

Stakeholder Engagement 

• Collaborate with key partners across marketing, medical affairs, market access, global brand strategy and growth X hub corporate strategy, new product portfolio, finance, development to unify insights strategies.
• Engage with stakeholders at the global, regional and local level
• Represent the insights and analytics function with external stakeholders, including partners, agencies, and advisory boards.
• Ensure global consistency while allowing for regional customization and market-specific dynamics.

Qualifications Required:

• Education: MBA, MSc, PhD, or equivalent in Life Sciences, Business, Economics, or a related field.
• Experience: 15+ years in analytics, insights, or strategic functions within the pharmaceutical, biotech, or healthcare sector.
• Deep experience in both developed and emerging markets.
• First-hand experience in the US market and Japan is a plus
• Proven track record of driving strategic impact through data and insights in a global matrix environment.
• Understanding of the insight and data landscaping as it pertains to Marketing, Market Access and Medical Affairs and across the brand lifecycle
• Demonstrated success working with Digital / Technology teams to build future capabilities that are fit for purpose, effective and differentiating
• First-hand experience working in an Agile organization where it is adopted at scale across all functions
• Strong leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills, including with Executive Committees.
• Familiarity with regulatory, compliance, and privacy considerations in the use of healthcare data globally.

Qualifications Preferred:

• Executive presence with a collaborative and decisive leadership style.
• Passion for innovation and patient-centricity.
• Experience with digital transformation initiatives and agile.
• Exposure to enterprise AI/ML applications in pharma.
• Ability to thrive in complexity and drive clarity from ambiguity.

 Working Environment:

• At Astellas we recognize the importance of work/life balance, and we are proud to offer a hybrid working solution allowing time to connect with colleagues at the office with the flexibility to also work from home. We believe this will optimize the most productive work environment for all employees to succeed and deliver. Hybrid work from certain locations may be permitted in accordance with Astellas’ Responsible Flexibility Guidelines

Salary Range: $350,000 - $450,000 (Final compensation will be determined based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to skills, experience and organizational equity considerations)

Benefits:

• Medical, Dental and Vision Insurance
• Generous Paid Time Off options, including Vacation and Sick time, plus national holidays including year-end shut down
• 401(k) match and annual company contribution
• Company paid life insurance
• Annual Corporate Bonus and Quarterly Sales Incentive for eligible positions
• Long Term Incentive Plan for eligible positions
• Company fleet vehicle for eligible positions
• Referral bonus program

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