Associate Director, Marketing Excellence
Verona Pharma
This listing was originally posted on Verona Pharma's careers page. Formulate is an equal opportunity job aggregator and is not involved in the hiring process. Where salary information is estimated, it is derived from BLS industry benchmarks and may differ from actual compensation.
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Roles and Responsibilities
The Associate Director, Marketing Excellence partners closely with Business Units/Brand Team and cross functional team to sharpen brand marketing strategy, enhance market insights, strengthen data-driven decisions, and translate strategy into effective customer engagement and execution excellence.
1. Marketing Excellence & Governance
• Shape and refine the Marketing Excellence framework and the governance mechanisms that raise the quality of both strategy development and strategy execution.
• Partner with business teams to ensure strategies are sharp, focused, and grounded in facts, and that customer engagement plans are clearly linked to strategy and translated into high-quality execution.
• Use governance forums and review routines to strengthen assumptions, surface trade-offs, and track execution excellence, ensuring timely decisions and follow-through across functions.
2. Capability Building & Best Practices
• Translate the Marketing Excellence framework into practical ways of working through workshops, working sessions, and targeted capability building for brand and cross-functional teams.
• Build and continuously enrich internal and external benchmarks and best practices across key marketing topics & customer solutions, and convert them into clear guidance or practice that teams can apply.
• Strengthen marketing excellence by scaling proven approaches, case examples, and lessons learned across brands.
• Work closely with L&D team to develop Marketing Excellence training courses to cover key MEX topics
3. Strategic Pilots & Growth Opportunity Enablement
• Identify systematic business issues and high-potential growth opportunities that cut across brands, and define priority improvement areas.
• Pilot new approaches with selected brands to validate solutions, demonstrate impact, and turn opportunities into scalable models.
• Drive cross-functional implementation and follow-through to ensure successful pilots are embedded into business practice and translated into measurable results.
Requirements
Education / Professional Certificate
• Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s degree or MBA is a plus.
Working Experience
• 8+ years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, with deep experience in strategic marketing, brand strategy, or related commercial leadership roles.
• Strong track record of leading or materially shaping strategy for large, high-priority brands or complex portfolios, with clear evidence of business impact.
• Hands-on experience translating strategy into execution, including customer engagement, cross-functional alignment, and disciplined follow-through.
• Exposure to FMCG industries is a plus.
Professional knowledge and skill
• Deep strategic marketing expertise, with strong understanding of brand strategy, customer engagement, and the drivers of sustainable brand growth.
• Ability to work collaboratively across functions to drive clarity, sharpen priorities, and translate strategy into focused execution.
• Able to bring structure and clarity to complex business questions, sharpen strategic choices, and help teams stay focused on the few priorities that matter most.
• Collaborative and influential, with the ability to align diverse stakeholders, challenge constructively, and drive clarity without direct authority.
• Strong executive communication skills, with the ability to synthesize issues clearly and support high-quality decision-making.
• Agile, proactive, and outcome-oriented, with strong ownership, learning agility, and a high compliance mindset.
• Professional proficiency in English and Mandarin.
Required Skills:
Adaptability, Data-Driven Decision Making, Feasibility Studies, Market Research, Pharmaceutical Market, Portfolio Management, Project Management, Resource Allocation, Risk Management, Strategic Planning, Strategic ThinkingPreferred Skills:
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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:
RegularRelocation:
No relocationVISA Sponsorship:
NoTravel Requirements:
No Travel RequiredFlexible Work Arrangements:
HybridShift:
Not IndicatedValid Driving License:
NoHazardous Material(s):
n/aJob Posting End Date:
06/30/2026*A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.
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Small molecules for respiratory indications
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