Operations & Transformation Lead

Operations & Transformation Lead

 

ROLE SUMMARY

Leads Operations & Transformation for Pfizer International Commercial: a Division-wide function of approximately 140 colleagues across the Top 16 markets and 7 clusters, 85+ markets in total, and one of six functions reporting to the Head of Business Transformation & Technology.

 

The function exists to shorten the distance between a signal and an action in a market, and to connect what we see across markets. Performance signals surface market by market today and nobody joins the pattern across them, so the cost of a shift is established only after it has compounded. The role puts a standing owner on all three stages: seeing the signal, understanding what it says, and acting on it with the country.

 

Three arms under one leader. Country Operations Partnership holds one execution picture per market on the cockpit cadence, owns the ranked intervention pipeline and the field deployment calendar, and is accountable for landing Salesforce CRM and Zaidyn across International. The Knot Accelerator deploys time-boxed squads into priority countries, regions or territories, and is accountable from case acceptance to realised value. The Global Operations Service Center, 135 colleagues across three centres, runs operational work at scale, automates it with AI, partners with the markets to take manual work off them, and owns cost-to-serve.

 

Beyond running the three arms, the role owns work that is not owned anywhere today. The easy gains in commercial execution have been taken; incremental value now sits below the level we currently analyse. With IIS, the role pushes the analytics deeper on impactable sales, across countries rather than market by market. It is a joint decision maker with ICO and Finance on where the International field force spend planned for 2027 sits across markets and knots, and on the optimal level per knot. It sets the questions probed and the evidence brought to every market business review. This work is only possible from an International seat with sight of every market at once.

 

Deliberately federated. The primary channel into a market is the customer-facing excellence lead in the in-market CE&I community, which is where the function's own depth sits; it is not the only channel, and the function engages wherever an opportunity exists, including tenders and contracting. Built in-house rather than through external consultancies, on proof points already delivered across International: lower cost, faster delivery, and the knowledge stays with Pfizer.

 

Geographic scope: all Pfizer International markets, organised as the Top 16 plus 7 clusters, 85+ markets in total, with go-to-market sequenced by CMI market archetype. The function runs on a budget of $10 to 12 million including GOSC, The role defines the people, technology and financial resourcing strategy for the function, including growth-gig talent rotations, AI-enabled automation, and a savings-recycling model that self-funds the highest-return interventions. It influences Division-wide decisions with long-term organisational impact and serves as strategic adviser to senior International leadership on performance, execution and scale.

 

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

Decisions this role makes, with Division-wide effect

• Intervention triage. Which performance cases are worked, by whom and at what intensity. The role chairs the gate; ICO and EMCO co-sign. All International markets.

• Resource allocation. A joint decision with ICO and Finance on where the International field force spend sits across markets and knots, and the optimal level per knot, on IIS evidence. Instrumental in deciding where resource changes are made. Top 16 and 7 clusters.

• Business review agenda. The questions probed and the evidence brought to each market review, with ICO. Per market, all markets.

• Field deployment calendar. What reaches the field in each market and in what order, across all functions, with market leadership. Per market, all markets.

• Salesforce CRM and AI enabled territory and IC management landing. Market readiness, sequencing, training and adoption across International, with CMO and Digital.

• GOSC scope and footprint. Which operational work moves to GOSC and when; service levels, hub location and cost-to-serve, with the markets and Finance. Three centres, SMEs in 24 countries.

• Squad deployment and exit. Where the Knot deploys, the outcome it is accountable for and when it hands back, with country leadership.

• Capacity reallocation. Where freed capacity and GOSC savings are redeployed across the portfolio, with Finance. Function-wide.

 

A. See it earlier, and connect it across markets

The standing engine. Surfaces performance risk and opportunity ahead of the cycle and joins the pattern across markets, delivered with and through the customer-facing excellence leads in the in-market CE&I community, in collaboration with IIS, ICO, Digital and the CFC Excellence COE.

• Track CFC 360 performance. One execution picture per market spanning CFC execution KPIs, sales versus budget at territory level and subnational analysis, leveraging AI tools such as DecisionIQ, on the cockpit cadence with IIS.

• Connect the signal across markets. Join what each market is seeing into one pattern while there is still time in the period to act. This is the gap the function is created to close: today each market reads its own numbers and nobody owns the cross-market view.

• Shorten time to insight. Work with IIS to move detection earlier and make it continuous rather than periodic.

• Track COE and capability programmes in-market. Execution of CFC Excellence COE programmes on the same rhythm as tools and KPIs: STEM, KAM, IC policy, segmentation and targeting, key action plan follow-up.

• Track field execution of AI tools. Deployment is owned by Digital; this function tracks whether the tool changed the workflow in the field, including responsible-AI adherence, and closes the business-impact loop.

• Run the insight-to-action loop. Close operating link with IIS, ICO, the CFC COE and the Digital pillars so tracking translates into country action within the cycle.

• Own the ranked intervention pipeline. Evidence-backed cases sized by value at stake and urgency, validated with IIS and ICO, refreshed on the LE financial cycles. Cases requiring new investment route to the Investment Committee through Strategy, Value & Innovation.

• Partner through the CE&I community. Primary channel is the customer-facing excellence lead in each market, with a structured voice-of-market loop and a tiered model for markets without in-market CE&I capacity. The function engages beyond customer-facing excellence wherever an opportunity exists, including tenders and contracting.

• Partner with countries to offload manual work to GOSC. Market by market, identify the manual and repeatable processes still run locally, agree what moves and when, and transition it with GOSC. Country time goes back to customers and strategic work.

• Own post-handback sustainability. Confirm the installed rhythm keeps running and the gains hold, through 30, 60 and 90 day checks.

• Transfer proven practice hands-on, and scale proven commercial model innovations by archetype. CMI owns design and pilot; this function owns the market matching and the hands-on scale-out.

• Hunt efficiencies and retire work. Every deployment retires something, with decommissioning a formal part of launch.

 

B. Analytics depth, resource allocation and the business review agenda

Work that is not owned today. It sits between the countries, IIS and ICO, and only works from a position with visibility across all markets.

• Push the analytics deeper on impactable sales. The low-hanging fruit no longer exists; incremental value sits below the level currently analysed. With IIS, establish what is genuinely impactable, where and by whom, done once across countries rather than market by market. IIS owns the analytics; this role owns turning them into decisions.

• Set the business review agenda. Define the questions worth asking and the places worth probing ahead of each market review, bring the evidence that makes it a working session rather than a report-out, agree actions with the market in the room and track them afterwards.

• Raise the standard of the performance dialogue with every country, not only the markets in difficulty.

 

C. Salesforce CRM and Zaidyn delivery across International

Accountable for landing the new platforms in the markets: on time, adopted in the field, and sustained.

• Own International delivery accountability for Salesforce CRM and for Zaidyn in territory management and incentive compensation: market readiness, localisation decisions, data readiness, training, go-live sequencing and field adoption, with CMO, the COEs, Digital and the markets.

• Hold the boundary. Platform build, configuration standards and global programme ownership remain with CMO and Digital. This role owns the International delivery and adoption outcome and the single escalation path for market issues.

• Run the post-launch feedback loop, with ease of adoption tracked as a delivery measure alongside go-live.

• Sequence platform landings within the field deployment calendar so they do not collide with other market-facing change.

 

D. Knot Accelerator: act on it faster

The surge arm of the same value chain. Time-boxed deep-dive deployments on cases from the pipeline, or pulled directly by a CP or ICO through the same gate. Deploys where execution, not investment, is the gap, at the level the problem sits: country, region or territory.

• Run the opportunity motion end to end. Diagnose on the ground with IIS, co-define the execution path with ICO and the country, execute to realisation. Value counts when it lands in the P&L.

• Run the recovery motion end to end. Formulate the recovery plan with ICO, have the country jointly own it, execute together and track to realised recovery.

• Stay an execution force. Investment needs surfaced during deployment route back to the Investment Committee.

• Run CFC refresh as a case. Field force sizing, structure and role design, from on-ground diagnostic to implemented structure, with ICO co-formulation.

• Co-formulate portfolio-to-CFC allocation. Bag design and role mix proposed on evidence and external benchmarks with IIS and ICO. The country decides.

• Chair the triage gate. The role holder chairs, ICO co-signs. Each case routes to country self-serve, a Knot deployment, or the investment route. Pull requests are logged through the same gate.

• Run small core, agile squads. A core team of around four orchestrates squads staffed through one-year growth-gig rotations; squads form around a case, deploy, deliver and disband.

• Time-box with a hard stop, and hand back clean into the standing cadence.

• Run the growth-gig engine. Selection, development and re-entry of country field talent; alumni return carrying the method and form the future staffing pipeline of the hubs.

• Compound the learning. Close every deployment with a case record: trigger, root cause, actions, realised value, what we would repeat.

 

E. GOSC: run, transform and serve

The home of operational work. Centralised by design, one team serving all geographies.

• Run reliable services at scale. Lead the Global Operations Service Center of 135 colleagues across Istanbul, India and Mexico, comprising: service quality, delivery standards and cost-to-serve across IC, CFCD, MCD and Commercial Quality.

• Own the outsourced delivery model. A majority-contractor workforce delivered through service partners across three centres: partner selection and performance, contract and service-level management, continuity of service through transition, and the engagement of a mixed Pfizer and contractor workforce. No other function in Business Transformation & Technology carries this.
• Transform with AI, and convert the efficiency into capacity. Drive systematic automation across the function's $10 to 12 million cost base, including GOSC,.

• Shift the footprint. Migrate work to hubs while protecting service continuity and colleague engagement.

• Expand the offload, in partnership with the countries. A standing migration agenda with each market: joint inventory, agreed transition plan and service levels, standardise once and automate the refresh. Released country capacity and cost-to-serve are the measures of success.

• Serve the other two arms as the reporting and PMO engine on SLAs. Explicitly not analytics, which sit with Gateway and IIS.

 

F. Enterprise leadership

• Lead the operating model transition for the function: clarity of scope, retention of critical talent, speed to a stable new state.

• Operate as a full member of the leadership team and through the extended LT with IIS, CFC Excellence Enablement & Training, and PX.

• Build a function known as a talent accelerator, through the growth-gig model, GOSC career paths and visible market impact.

• Shape the external hub and service-partner ecosystem and import cross-industry operating benchmarks into how the Division runs.

 

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor's degree.

• Significant biopharma commercial and operations experience across multiple international markets, developed and emerging, including senior leadership roles such as GM, country, cluster or regional commercial leadership.

• Experience leading market-level performance interventions or restructurings with measurable P&L outcomes and disciplined value realisation: baselines, delivered-versus-projected accounting, scale or kill decisions.

• Experience leading CFC and field force design, sizing, structure and portfolio allocation, across multiple markets.

• Experience owning delivery and adoption of a major commercial system implementation across multiple markets, such as CRM.

• Demonstrated matrix leadership with credibility at country GM and senior functional level.

 

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• MBA or other advanced degree.

• GM or country or cluster P&L ownership.

• Experience leading or transforming a large service or operations organisation, including location strategy and cost-to-serve management.

• Track record applying AI and automation to commercial or operational work.

• Evidence of building leadership pipelines, new functions and capabilities through rotation, secondment or gig models.

• Cultural agility across the full breadth of international markets; effective on the ground in-market.

 

NON-STANDARD WORK SCHEDULE, TRAVEL OR ENVIRONMENT REQUIREMENTS

Significant international travel across International markets (indicatively 30–50%), including extended in-market presence during deep-dive deployments; regular collaboration across time zones.

 

Primary relationships

• Country presidents, GMs and the customer-facing excellence leads in the in-market CE&I community: the primary channel into each market and the delivery spokes of the federated model.

• ICO and EMCO: co-signatory on the triage gate, joint decision maker on resource allocation, and partner on the business review agenda.

• IIS and the Analytics Gateway: insights, cockpit reviews, KPI frameworks and the analytics behind impactable sales. IIS owns the analytics; this function turns them into decisions and action.

• Finance: joint decision maker on resource allocation; LE cycles, savings and benefits tracking.

• CFC Excellence COE: owns the capability programmes; this function tracks their execution in-market.

• CMO: Salesforce CRM platform and global programme; this function owns International delivery and adoption.

• Digital, Strategy Value & Innovation: investment intake and Investment Committee decisions; this function builds and routes the case and executes once funded.

• Digital, Build and Adoption & Scale: tools, data products and deployment; this function owns the deployment calendar and the business-impact loop.

• Commercial Model Innovation: designs and pilots new models; this function matches archetypes and scales what proves out.

• Enabling functions, CET, Medical, Access & Value, Legal & Compliance: compliant execution in-market, including tenders and contracting where an opportunity exists.

• PX: growth gigs, hub location strategy, transition and change plan.

• External: hub and service-delivery partners; industry benchmarking networks.

 

Operating boundaries. These define how the function works with its partners; they are not limits on its decision authority. Analytics are built by IIS and the Analytics Gateway. Tools and their deployment are owned by Digital. Investment is approved by the Investment Committee. Market decisions and the P&L sit with the country.

 

Financial levers owned by this role:

• Function budget of $10 to 12 million including GOSC: cost-to-serve across four service lines and three centres, including the contractor and service-partner spend for 57 of the 135 colleagues.

• Salesforce CRM and Zaidyn delivery envelope for International.

• Joint decision authority with ICO and Finance over the allocation of the $1.2 billion International field force spend planned for 2027, across markets and knots.

 

Supervision:

Approximately 140 colleagues in total. GOSC of 135 across three delivery centres, of which 78 are Pfizer colleagues and 57 are contractors engaged through service partners, plus a core team of approximately five across Country Operations Partnership and the Knot Accelerator. The contractor majority within GOSC adds vendor, contract and service-level management to the supervisory load.

4 to 6 direct reports, a mix of people managers and senior individual contributors, including the GOSC Lead, the Knot Accelerator Lead and the CRM delivery lead.

Matrix responsibility for the growth-gig deployment squads across the Top 16 and the 7 clusters and for the customer-facing excellence and CE&I community across all International markets.

One of four functions reporting to the Head of Business Transformation & Technology, alongside Strategy Value & Innovation, Build: Data Engineering & AI, and Adoption & Scale.

Purpose 

Breakthroughs that change patients' lives... At Pfizer we are a patient centric company, guided by our four values: courage, joy, equity and excellence. Our breakthrough culture lends itself to our dedication to transforming millions of lives.  

Digital Transformation Strategy

One bold way we are achieving our purpose is through our company wide digital transformation strategy. We are leading the way in adopting new data, modelling and automated solutions to further digitize and accelerate drug discovery and development with the aim of enhancing health outcomes and the patient experience.

Flexibility  

We aim to create a trusting, flexible workplace culture which encourages employees to achieve work life harmony, attracts talent and enables everyone to be their best working self. Let’s start the conversation!  

Equal Employment Opportunity 

We believe that a diverse and inclusive workforce is crucial to building a successful business. As an employer, Pfizer is committed to celebrating this, in all its forms – allowing for us to be as diverse as the patients and communities we serve. Together, we continue to build a culture that encourages, supports and empowers our employees.

DisAbility Confident

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer and we encourage you to put your best self forward with the knowledge and trust that we will make any reasonable adjustments necessary to support your application and future career. Our mission is unleashing the power of our people, especially those with unique superpowers. Your journey with Pfizer starts here!

To learn more about acceptable and prohibited uses of AI during the recruitment process, please review our candidate AI-use guidelines available on Pfizer Careers.

 

 

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