Chief of Staff - PDT & GSQ DD&T

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Job Description

As a member of the PDT & GSQ Strategy, Portfolio & Operational Excellence team, acts as the Chief of Staff, trusted advisor, strategic partner, and force multiplier to the Head of PDT & GSQ DD&T.

The role strengthens executive and Leadership Team effectiveness by enabling high-quality decisions, disciplined execution of strategic priorities, strong operational governance, effective leadership engagement, and measurable progress against business goals.

Key Accountabilities

Executive Partnership

• Advise and support the Head of PDT & GSQ DD&T on key priorities, leadership topics, stakeholder dynamics, and emerging risks.
• Help maintain focus on the most important issues and provide constructive challenge where needed.
• Handle sensitive business, organizational, and people matters with sound judgment and discretion.
• Act as a core participant in relevant leadership routines and governance forums, ensuring decisions, actions, and escalations are clearly captured and progressed.

Leadership Team Effectiveness

• Own the operating rhythm of the PDT & GSQ DD&T Leadership Team.
• Design and facilitate effective meetings focused on discussion, decisions, accountability, and follow-through.
• Maintain transparent decision and action logs and ensure commitments are closed.
• Reinforce agreed leadership behaviours, team norms, and collective accountability.
• Increase Leadership Team effectiveness by clarifying meeting purpose, decision rights, required contributions, and expected outcomes for each leadership interaction.
• Ensure the Leadership Team spends time on the highest-value strategic, operational, talent, and organizational topics rather than routine status updates.
• Create mechanisms for the Leadership Team to identify, debate, and resolve critical trade-offs, interdependencies, risks, and cross-functional tensions in a timely and constructive manner.
• Facilitate periodic reflection on Leadership Team effectiveness, including what is working, where decision-making or collaboration can improve, and how team behaviours support strategic execution.
• Support effective alignment and engagement of the broader PDT & GSQ DD&T Leadership Forum.

Executive Preparation and Communications

• Prepare the Head of PDT & GSQ DD&T for key executive engagements, business reviews, steering committees, Leadership Team meetings, and strategic workshops.
• Develop concise briefing materials, decision papers, talking points, presentations, and executive communications in close collaboration with the Change Enablement Lead.
• Prepare and coordinate PDT & GSQ DD&T townhalls, including narrative, agenda, content, speaker preparation, and follow-up.
• Anticipate stakeholder positions, key questions, risks, and recommended actions.

Decision Enablement and Follow-Through

• Structure complex topics into clear choices, decisions, owners, and next steps.
• Track key decisions, commitments, risks, and dependencies.
• Follow up with accountable leaders and surface unresolved issues or execution gaps.
• Bring the right stakeholders together or lead initiatives to resolve cross-functional topics.

Business Performance, KPI Management, and Operational Excellence

• Monitor progress against PDT & GSQ DD&T strategic priorities, annual goals, KPIs, risks, and dependencies.
• Analyze performance trends and provide insights, recommendations, and escalation points to improve execution and business outcomes.
• Drive continuous improvement of leadership operating processes, decision governance, meeting effectiveness, and execution discipline.
• Partner with Strategy, Portfolio, Finance, HR, and functional leaders to support prioritization, resource planning, and delivery of key initiatives.

Leadership Alignment and Organizational Effectiveness

• Strengthen collaboration across the Leadership Team and key PDT, GSQ, and DD&T stakeholders.
• Identify misalignment, duplication, unclear ownership, and organizational barriers.
• Strengthen collective accountability by helping leaders connect functional priorities to shared PDT & GSQ DD&T outcomes and by surfacing where ownership or decision rights are unclear.
• Partner with HR and Change Enablement on selected leadership, talent, organization, and communication topics.
• Support the effective use of leadership forums and decision-making processes without duplicating strategy, portfolio, or program ownership.

Change Management, Culture, and Communications

• Support change management activities for priority initiatives, including stakeholder mapping, communication planning, leadership alignment, adoption tracking, and risk mitigation.
• Help foster a collaborative, transparent, and high-accountability leadership culture across PDT & GSQ DD&T.
• Strengthen internal communications and engagement by ensuring key messages are consistent, timely, audience-aware, and aligned to strategic priorities.
• Ensure Leadership Forum, townhall, and broader community touchpoints reinforce PDT & GSQ DD&T priorities, culture, and operating expectations.

Critical Capabilities

• Strong executive presence, judgment, and discretion.
• Excellent facilitation and senior stakeholder management.
• Ability to influence without formal authority.
• Strong strategic thinking and structured problem-solving.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication.
• High emotional intelligence and organizational awareness.
• Ability to translate ambiguity into clear decisions and action.
• Strong follow-through, resilience, and attention to detail.
• Strong business acumen, performance orientation, and ability to translate strategy into measurable execution plans.
• Experience leading through change, managing stakeholder adoption, and communicating effectively in complex transformation environments.

Experience

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred.
• Minimum of 8-10 years of relevant experience in strategy, consulting, operations, transformation, Chief of Staff, or comparable roles.
• Significant experience supporting senior executives and Leadership Teams.
• Proven ability to drive decisions, alignment, accountability, and cross-functional follow-through.
• Experience preparing executive materials, leadership communications, and townhalls.
• Experience in large, global, and matrixed organizations.
• Strong understanding of Digital, Data & Technology organizations.
• Pharmaceutical, life sciences, manufacturing, or another regulated-industry background preferred.
• Experience with KPI tracking, business performance management, operational excellence, or executive governance preferred.
• Experience supporting budget, resource planning, portfolio prioritization, or strategic investment discussions preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to handle highly confidential information and navigate sensitive organizational topics with discretion.

Locations

Zurich, Switzerland

Base Salary Range:

CHF177,400.00 - CHF243,980.00

For information about our benefits, please click here.

Worker Type

Employee

Worker Sub-Type

Regular

Time Type

Full time