Assoc. Dir , RWD Domain Enablement

Job Description

The Opportunity:

Based in Hyderabad, join a global healthcare biopharma company and be part of a 130- year legacy of success backed by ethical integrity, forward momentum, and an inspiring mission to achieve new milestones in global healthcare.

Be part of an organisation driven by digital technology and data-backed approaches that support a diversified portfolio of prescription medicines, vaccines, and animal health products.

Drive innovation and execution excellence. Be a part of a team with passion for using data, analytics, and insights to drive decision-making, and which creates custom software, allowing us to tackle some of the world's greatest health threats.

Our Technology Centers focus on creating a space where teams can come together to deliver business solutions that save and improve lives. An integral part of our company’s IT operating model, Tech Centers are globally distributed locations where each IT division has employees to enable our digital transformation journey and drive business outcomes. These locations, in addition to the other sites, are essential to supporting our business and strategy.

A focused group of leaders in each Tech Center helps to ensure we can manage and improve each location, from investing in growth, success, and well-being of our people, to making sure colleagues from each IT division feel a sense of belonging to managing critical emergencies. And together, we must leverage the strength of our team to collaborate globally to optimize connections and share best practices across the Tech Centers.

Role Overview:

Serve as the enterprise authority on the Real-World Data domain, guiding strategy, standards, governance, and adoption to ensure high-quality, scalable, and compliant data across all business units and platforms. This role sits within the Data Strategy & Governance organization and partners across divisions, analytics, and technology teams to align domain strategy with business outcomes, enforce source-of-truth and master data adoption, and enable delivery at scale through clear standards, policies, and operating models. This role reports to the Director - RWD & Research Domain Enablement Lead within the Data Strategy and Enablement team of the Chief Data & Analytics Office.

This position is based in our Hyderabad location, and we follow a hybrid work policy.

What will you do in this role:
Primary job responsibilities include:

• Enterprise Domain Expertise
  • Act as the enterprise authority for the RWD domain, maintaining deep expertise in the data assets, data products, business rules, reference data, mappings, and quality controls within the domain.
  • Translate enterprise and business-unit strategy into domain roadmaps that unify data product capabilities, platform needs, and adoption plans across regions and therapeutic areas.
  • Maintain authoritative knowledge of the domain's data sources (such as claims, EMR, labs), lineage, usage patterns, and dependencies to drive coherent decision-making and investment.

• Enterprise Domain Council Leadership
  • Establish and chair the Domain Council, ensuring representation from Domain Owners, Division / Function stakeholders, Delivery teams, Data Stewards, Data Quality, Data Strategy, Domain Analysts, and Domain MDM Leads.
  • Drive prioritization, demand management, and design decisions for domain-related initiatives, balancing quality, compliance, scalability, and speed-to-value.
  • Implement and evolve the domain operating model, ensuring clear roles, responsibilities, and escalation paths.

• Data Product Strategy & Scalability
  • Define the domain’s data product strategy, including product taxonomy, versioning, interoperability, and reusability standards across platforms.
  • Ensure product roadmaps align with business goals and support end-to-end analytics from business development to late lifecycle management.
  • Partner with platform and architecture teams to ensure scalable patterns for ingestion, curation, quality management, and access control.

• Implementation Partnership and Delivery Enablement
  • Partner closely with data product solution teams, division leads, IT, Business Data Owners, Data Scientists, and platform owners to enable consistent, repeatable NBAs and delivery patterns.
  • Define acceptance criteria and readiness checklists (quality, metadata, lineage, controls) for production releases and changes.
  • Continuously refine processes for demand intake, change management, and release orchestration to improve efficiency and robustness.

• Stakeholder Engagement and Communication
  • Lead stakeholder engagement with senior leadership and cross-functional teams to align on domain priorities, trade-offs, and value realization.
  • Communicate domain strategies, standards, and changes through clear, accessible materials and training for stewards and users.
  • Build strong relationships to drive adoption and ensure stakeholder satisfaction across functions and regions.

• Access Policies, Controls, and Approvals
  • Define and enforce domain-specific access policies aligned with privacy, compliance, and contractual requirements.
  • Ensure metadata and access-related attributes remain accurate and up to date to support compliant provisioning and audits.
  • Oversee approval workflows and segregation-of-duties controls in partnership with compliance and security teams.

• Data Quality, Integrity, and Lifecycle Management
  • Partner with DQM team to establish domain-wide quality standards, controls, and monitoring, including rules for validity, completeness, timeliness, and conformance.
  • Oversee the design and maintenance of business rules, reference data, and mapping files; ensure robust change controls and traceability.
  • Govern the data lifecycle from acquisition to archival/disposition, with documented lineage and impact assessment for changes.

• Master and Reference Data Adoption and Source of Truth Enforcement
  • Define and enforce the domain’s systems of record and authoritative sources, aligning data products and downstream analytics to approved sources-of-truth.
  • Partner with MDM & RDM leads to drive adoption, harmonization, and golden-record policies across business units and platforms.
  • Measure adherence and intervene when deviations undermine quality, consistency, or compliance.

• Standards, Policies, and Compliance
  • Establish domain standards for data modeling, naming, metadata, glossaries, and stewardship processes; ensure harmonization with enterprise frameworks.
  • Define and maintain domain SOPs covering ingestion, governance, quality management, change control, and incident response.
  • Partner with legal, compliance, and privacy to ensure ongoing adherence to regulatory and contractual obligations, especially for sensitive health data.

• Measurement, Monitoring, and Continuous Improvement
  • Define and maintain operational and outcome-oriented KPIs for the domain (e.g., product adoption, DQ SLAs, demand cycle time, policy compliance, incident MTTR).
  • Implement dashboards and review cadences with the Domain Council; use insights to drive continuous process and quality improvements.
  • Foster a culture of ownership, innovation, and learning to refine governance and stewardship models.

Education Minimum Requirement: 

• BA/BS required
• Business, IT or Analytics related field of study preferred.

Required Experience and Skills:

• Hands on experience with common Real World Data datasets (claims, EMR, labs) and their research and commercial application especially in the US market
• Experience leading cross functional teams of mid to high level stakeholders in the management of complex processes
• Experience in data governance, data domain management, data ingestion activities, change management, or related commercial data experience (11+years)
• Working knowledge of data quality management, business rule application, reference data/mapping management, and stewardship tools (e.g., business rule managers, catalogs, demand and DQ management)
• Strong communication, stakeholder management, and presentation skills; ability to translate business needs into data solutions and operating models
• Demonstrated project management skills; ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment; strategic/critical thinker; collaborative and resourceful
• Working knowledge of descriptive analytics and SOP creation.

What should you have:

• Experience with real world data experience (claims data, EHR/EMR, IQVIA, Symphony, etc.).
• Experience with data governance, data domain management, data ingestion activities
• Ability to define and enforce the domain’s systems of record and authoritative sources, aligning data products
• Exposure of oncology RWD data and use cases.

Desired/Optional Technology Exposure:

• Experience working in commercial or research areas of the pharmaceutical industry
• Experience supporting AI enabled processes and using AI tools in governance roles
• Experience in oncology RWD data and use cases
• Experience analyzing and designing process to drive efficient domain management
• Experience with SQL, BI, Collibra Catalog, and/or AI tools.

Who we are:

We are in the United state Rahway, New Jersey, USA in the United States and Canada everywhere else. For more than a century, we have been inventing for lives, bringing forward medicines and vaccines for many of the world's most challenging diseases. Today, our company continues to be at the forefront of research to deliver innovative health solutions and advance the prevention and treatment of diseases that threaten people and animals around the world.

What we look for:

Imagine getting up in the morning for a job as important as helping to save and improve lives around the world. Here, you have that opportunity. You can put your empathy, creativity, digital mastery, or scientific genius to work in collaboration with a diverse group of colleagues who pursue and bring hope to countless people who are battling some of the most challenging diseases of our time. Our team is constantly evolving, so if you are among the intellectually curious, join us—and start making your impact today.

#HYDIT2025

Required Skills:

Business Analysis, Business Data Analytics, Change Management, Data Governance, Data Quality, Data Science, Demand Management, Innovation, IT Demand Management, Product Roadmap, Product Strategies, Project Management, Quality Management, Reference Data Management, Requirements Management, Sourcing and Procurement, Stakeholder Communications, Stakeholder Engagement, Stakeholder Relationship Management, Strategic Planning

Preferred Skills:

Current Employees apply HERE

Current Contingent Workers apply HERE

Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully 
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. 

Employee Status:

Regular

Relocation:

VISA Sponsorship:

Travel Requirements:

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Hybrid

Shift:

Valid Driving License:

Hazardous Material(s):

Job Posting End Date:

05/22/2026

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