Associate Director, Agile Strategic Learning Lead

At Bristol Myers Squibb, our employees often ask, “Who are you working for?”—a question that fuels collaboration, accountability, and urgency in our work. Our purpose-driven culture inspires us to discover, develop, and deliver innovative medicines to prevail over serious diseases. We offer uniquely interesting and meaningful work, opportunities for growth, and a supportive environment that values inclusion, wellbeing, flexibility, and comprehensive benefits. This is work that transforms the lives of patients, and the careers of those who do it.

What we are looking for:

The Worldwide Commercialization Learning (WWCL) Centre of Excellence (CoE) is seeking an experienced, agile-minded learning leader to serve as Associate Director, Agile Strategic Learning Lead.

The WWCL CoE designs and builds the skills content and learning pathways used by every market BMS operates in and by home office functions globally, typically deployed with no more than ~20% local adaptation. The pooled Senior Manager team this role leads and resources is the operational engine that determines the pace, consistency, and quality of that output.
 

This role owns and leads WWCL CoE’s pooled Senior Manager capability, a flexible, cross-portfolio team of Senior Managers, Agile Strategic Learning Partners who are deployed dynamically against the CoE’s highest-priority work. Rather than being aligned to a single functional area, this role’s Senior Managers flex across Commercialization Field Skills, CASA & 3M (Medical, Marketing, Market Access) Skills, Platforms & AI Adoption, and First Line Manager (FLM)/Leadership Development, in line with the CoE’s unified operating model. This is a people leadership role: the Associate Director holds direct line management responsibility for the Senior Manager, Agile Strategic Learning Partner team, and is responsible for their development, performance, and effective deployment across the full breadth of CoE Skills team priorities.

This is distinct from the CoE’s functional Associate Directors (Field AI Transformation Learning; Platforms Skills Development; CASA & 3M Skills Development; Medical Skills), whose primary orientation is toward business stakeholders, understanding commercial, medical, or platform needs to shape design intent for their portfolio area. The Associate Director, Agile Strategic Learning Lead is internally oriented: the role’s focus is leading the Senior Manager team and define and build the mechanics of the operating model itself; tiering, prioritization, capacity, and skills-matching so that the right resource is aligned to the right work at the right time, in close partnership with the functional Associate Directors who own that work.

This role works in close, ongoing partnership with the Senior Director, Worldwide Commercialization Learning Strategy & Operations and Enterprise LEAP Performance, ensuring the pooled Senior Manager team's capacity, delivery, and demand data directly inform Enterprise LEAP performance, value case, and vendor governance outcomes.
 

The CoE's Priority, Tiering, and Resource principles have been defined in principle by CoE leadership, but the operating mechanics that bring them to life, capacity matching, portfolio review rhythms, and skills-based resourcing, have not yet been operationalized. This role introduces and stands up those mechanics in practice, in partnership with LEAP, and leads their ongoing evolution as the CoE's portfolio, technology landscape, and business priorities change, particularly as AI reshapes what is possible in learning design and delivery, bringing recommendations to the Senior Director, WWCL Centre of Excellence for endorsement. This includes drawing on workforce strategy and organizational design principles, and partnering with HR and IT, to identify and build net-new approaches where no established methodology yet exists. The BMS-LEAP delivery partnership is itself newly established, having launched within the past year and still in the early stages of piloting what it can reliably deliver for learning content and resources. This role sits at the center of discovering, in practice, how that partnership works for the WWCL portfolio, feeding what is learned back into both the operating model design and Enterprise LEAP performance reporting.
 

Who you will work with:

This position reports to the Senior Director, Worldwide Commercialization Learning Centre of Excellence.

In this role, the Associate Director partners closely with:

• Senior Manager, Agile Strategic Learning Partner team: as direct line manager, providing strategic direction, project assignment, coaching, and delivery accountability
• Fellow WWCL CoE Associate Directors (WW Commercialization Field AI Transformation Learning; WW Commercialization Platforms Skills Development; CASA & 3M Skills Development; WW Medical Skills), to align pooled Senior Manager resource against each functional area’s priorities and to maintain a coherent, non-duplicative learner experience
• Senior Director, WWCL Centre of Excellence: for portfolio-level trade-off decisions, escalations, and Book of Work governance
• Senior Director, Worldwide Commercialization Learning Strategy & Operations and Enterprise LEAP Performance: as a close operating partner, translating pooled Senior Manager capacity, utilization, and delivery data into Enterprise LEAP performance reporting, value case validation, and vendor governance
• Enterprise Learning and Digital Learning Solution Partner (DLSP) teams: to ensure programs deployed by the pooled team meet platform and adoption standards
• HR and IT teams: to explore and capitalize on emerging AI and technology capabilities relevant to workforce design and the operating model's evolution
   

Primary responsibilities:

1. Agile Portfolio Governance & Learning Partner Lead & Operating Model Design

• Ensure every project entering the portfolio completes the standard intake process (stakeholder/sponsor, audience, business objective, timeline, link to enterprise priorities, dependencies, compliance requirement) before resourcing is considered and allocated.
• Apply CoE prioritization criteria consistently, distinguishing Priority (business importance), Tier (delivery/ownership model), and Resource (level of effort) as three independent dimensions
• Maintain and present the CoE Book of Work, providing a single, transparent, shared portfolio view across all Associate Directors
• Introduce and operationalise the CoE's agile pooled resourcing mechanics into live practice with LEAP, building on principles established by CoE leadership, and recommend refinements to the Senior Director, WWCL Centre of Excellence for endorsement
• Lead the ongoing evolution of these mechanics as the CoE's portfolio, technology landscape, and business priorities change, drawing on workforce strategy and organizational design principles to identify new approaches to resourcing and capacity optimization
• Partner with HR and IT to identify and capitalize on emerging AI and technology capabilities that enable net-new approaches to resourcing, skills-matching, and operating model design where no established methodology yet exists
• Continually reassess where CoE-produced prototypes end and LEAP-produced assets begin, as AI-enabled content creation tools reshape what each side can efficiently deliver, and recommend adjustments to the CoE's tiering and delivery-ownership guardrails accordingly
• Ensure resourcing and prioritization decisions protect the throughput, consistency, and quality of learning solutions before they are deployed globally, recognizing that most CoE-produced content reaches markets and home office functions with minimal local adaptation
   

2. Line Management & Flexible Resourcing

• Hold direct line management responsibility for the Senior Manager, Agile Strategic Learning Partner team, including performance management, coaching, and career development
• Match Senior Managers to projects based on skill fit, specialist knowledge (e.g., therapy area, field capability, platforms & AI adoption, leadership development), capacity, and project phase, in partnership with the Central PM role
• Ensure assignments are phase-specific rather than project-long, with a minimum assignment block of two weeks, and that resource is assigned across functional Associate Directors
• Lead regular portfolio reviews to rebalance Senior Manager capacity, resolve over/under-capacity issues, and re-assess shifting priorities
• Maintain transparent capacity visibility for all Associate Directors, ensuring the pooled model builds trust and predictability across the CoE

3. Operating Model Guardrails & Quality Standards

• Uphold the CoE’s operating guardrails across all pooled Senior Manager work: prototype rather than produce, send systematized/templated work to LEAP, and maintain a strategy-to-creation ratio (target 70% strategy / 30% creation)
• Ensure Senior Managers, where appropriate are not undertaking formatting, graphic cleanup, or multiple-version production, protecting the CoE’s strategic mandate and directing that work to LEAP
• Partner with functional Associate Directors to ensure work is resourced appropriately and that tiering, priority, and resource decisions remain independently assessed
• Champion adult learning principles, AI-enabled ways of working, and consistent quality standards across all portfolio areas served by the pooled team
   

4. LEAP Partnership & Enterprise Performance Management

• Escalate enterprise-impacting prioritization and capacity trade-offs to the LEAP Interlock Lead and relevant enterprise stakeholders.
• Ensure Senior Managers provide LEAP with clear requirements, SME nominations, review cycles, and delivery readiness confirmations in line with LEAP governance intake standards
• Monitor delivery performance and partnership health across the pooled team’s LEAP-engaged projects, surfacing risks and systemic issues
• Partner closely with the Senior Director, Worldwide Commercialization Learning Strategy & Operations and Enterprise LEAP Performance, translating pooled Senior Manager capacity, utilization, and delivery data into inputs for Enterprise LEAP performance reporting, business case validation, and realized savings tracking
• Support the enterprise vendor/supplier management model by supplying accurate, consistent demand, tiering, and resourcing data from the pooled Senior Manager portfolio to inform value tracking methodologies

5. Continuous Improvement & Reporting

• Track and report lead and lag indicators of operating model success (e.g., tiering applied at intake, prototype turnaround time, Skills-only vs. LEAP-only workload ratio, capability uplift, reuse rates, cost avoidance)
• Provide the Senior Director with a forward-looking view of the active demand pipeline and portfolio health, contributing to CoE governance forums
• Stay abreast of AI-enabled learning technologies and ways of working, bringing evidence-based recommendations to scale effective practices across the pooled team

(Disclaimer: The responsibilities listed above are only a summary and other responsibilities will be required as assigned.)
 

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree or Project Management certification preferred

• 8–10+ years of experience in learning, commercialization, or capability development, ideally within life sciences; experience launching global programs required

• Demonstrated people leadership experience, including managing and developing a team through a flexible, project-based, or matrixed resourcing model
• Proven experience operating a portfolio-level prioritization and governance process (demand intake, tiering, resource allocation) across competing business priorities
• Strong understanding of agile ways of working and pooled/flexible resourcing models within a learning or capability development function
• Experience with global delivery partners (e.g., LEAP/GCC or equivalent) and multi-partner delivery ecosystems, including managing service levels and escalation pathways
• Comfortable working with operational and resourcing data (capacity, utilization, demand) to support enterprise performance reporting and value tracking, partnering effectively with strategy and operations leadership
• Experience or strong interest in workforce strategy and organizational design, applied to operating models where established methodology does not yet exist
• Familiarity with how emerging AI and content-creation technologies are reshaping the boundary between what the CoE prototypes internally and what LEAP produces, and comfort recommending adjustments to delivery-ownership guardrails as that boundary shifts
• High level of data, digital, and AI fluency; able to identify and champion AI-enabled ways of working across a broad team
• Exceptional influencing and consulting skills; able to operate credibly at senior levels and resolve trade-offs in complex, matrixed global environments
• Demonstrated ability to hold guardrails and quality standards (e.g., strategic focus vs. production work) while managing multiple concurrent stakeholders
• Proven ability to drive delivery accountability and high performance both through direct reports and through others without direct line management authority

We hire for skills and capabilities, not just credentials – if this role excites you, but doesn’t perfectly match your resume, we encourage you to apply anyway.

Princeton - NJ - US: $172,550 - $209,090

The starting pay range(s) listed above is for full-time employees (FTE). You may also be eligible for additional discretionary incentive cash and stock opportunities. We determine starting pay thoughtfully – carefully considering the nature of the role, required skills, work location, schedule and the knowledge and experience you bring. Final compensation is guided by pay equity principles and applicable employment laws. Compensation programs are reviewed on an ongoing basis and may be adjusted over time to reflect evolving market factors, and individual, team or Company performance.

Benefits:

Subject to the terms and conditions of the applicable plans then in effect, you may be eligible to participate in our comprehensive benefit plans – including wellbeing support, retirement and financial protection benefits, and insurance offerings (medical, dental, vision, life and disability).

U.S.-based exempt employees are eligible for Flexible Time Off (FTO), which provides paid time off without a set accrual limit, subject to manager approval, along with 11 paid company holidays each year.

Non-exempt employees, RayzeBio employees, and employees located in Puerto Rico receive 160 hours of paid vacation annually for new hires (subject to manager approval), 11 paid company holidays, and 3 optional holidays.

Depending on eligibility, employees may also have access to additional time-off benefits, including paid sick leave, up to two paid volunteer days per year, summer hours flexibility, and leaves of absence for medical, personal, parental, caregiver, bereavement, or military needs. Eligible employees also enjoy an annual Global Shutdown between Christmas Day and New Year's Day.

U.S.-based job seekers can explore full benefit offerings at https://careers.bms.com/benefits

How We Work

Where you work matters – because collaboration, innovation and patient impact happen in many settings. Our roles are structured across four work models: site-essential, site-by-design, field-based and remote-by-design. The model assigned to this role is based on its core responsibilities. Learn more at https://careers.bms.com/ways-of-working.

Supporting People with Disabilities

BMS is dedicated to ensuring that people with disabilities can excel through a transparent recruitment process, reasonable workplace accommodations/adjustments and ongoing support in their roles. Applicants can request a reasonable workplace accommodation/adjustment prior to accepting a job offer. If you require reasonable accommodations/adjustments in completing this application, or in any part of the recruitment process, direct your inquiries to adastaffingsupport@bms.com. Visit careers.bms.com/eeo-accessibility to access our complete Equal Employment Opportunity statement.

Candidate Rights

BMS will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, pursuant to applicable laws in your area.

For roles based in Los Angeles County only:  If you live in or expect to work from Los Angeles County if hired for this position, please visit this page for important additional information: https://careers.bms.com/california-residents/

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If this posting is missing required information required by local law or incorrect, contact BMS at TAEnablement@bms.comwith the Job Title and Requisition number. Do not send application-related inquiries to this email. To check your application status, please login to your Candidate Home Account.

R1606529 : Associate Director, Agile Strategic Learning Lead