Director, Authentication and Directory Services

ROLE SUMMARY

Pfizer's Identity Security and Access Management (ISAM) organization designs, implements, and operates a centralized, modern, and scalable identity security ecosystem that protects digital assets, improves end-user experiences, and supports global regulatory requirements. The Director, Authentication and Directory Services, provides global leadership, vision, and strategic direction for Pfizer's enterprise authentication and directory capabilities.

 

The Director is accountable for the people, platforms, operating model, service health, security posture, and multi-year roadmap for mission-critical, Tier 0 services used by colleagues, contractors, partners, applications, and infrastructure.

 

The portfolio includes enterprise Active Directory and hybrid/cloud directory services, single sign-on, federation, multi-factor authentication, passwordless authentication, public key infrastructure. This leader manages senior managers, managers, engineers, product owners, and partner resources; sets priorities and technical guardrails; and ensures secure, resilient, scalable, and user-centered services. The role remains technically engaged in high-impact architecture, risk, incident, and transformation decisions, while delegating most hands-on engineering and day-to-day service execution to the leaders and specialists on the team.

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

• Strategy, Vision & Portfolio Ownership: Define and execute the global strategy and multi-year roadmap for Authentication and Directory Services. Translate enterprise, CISO, and ISAM priorities into measurable service outcomes, investment decisions, modernization plans, and retirement of legacy capabilities.
• People & Organizational Leadership: Lead and develop a globally distributed organization of senior managers, managers, engineers, product owners, and partner resources. Establish clear accountability, succession plans, skills development, workforce strategy, and a culture of ownership, collaboration, innovation, and operational excellence.
• Service, Product & Financial Accountability: Own end-to-end service performance, demand, capacity, lifecycle, budget, vendor commitments, and value realization across the authentication and directory portfolio. Set objectives and key performance indicators for availability, resilience, security, adoption, cost, and customer experience.
• Architecture, Standards & Modernization: Provide executive and technical governance for enterprise architecture, engineering standards, and reusable patterns across Active Directory, Entra ID and cloud directories, federation, single sign-on, multi-factor and passwordless authentication, identity synchronization, Group Policy, DNS dependencies, and hybrid identity. Guide major design decisions and selectively contribute hands-on expertise to the most complex or high-risk work.
• Cybersecurity, Risk & Compliance: Ensure authentication and directory controls align with Pfizer policies, applicable regulatory requirements, and recognized security practices. Sponsor reduction of legacy protocols and insecure configurations, drive directory hygiene and vulnerability remediation, and maintain audit-ready evidence and sustainable business-as-usual controls.
• Operational Resilience & Incident Leadership: Ensure highly available global services with effective monitoring, disaster recovery, capacity management, service continuity, change governance, and 24x7 support. Provide senior leadership during significant incidents and problems, hold teams accountable for root-cause remediation, and convert operational insights into continuous improvement.
• Transformation & Delivery: Direct complex global programs such as directory modernization, domain controller upgrades, cloud migration of authentication services, passwordless adoption, and simplification or retirement of custom platforms. Resolve cross-functional dependencies, manage risk, and ensure programs deliver measurable business and security outcomes.
• Enterprise Partnership & Executive Communication: Partner with Cybersecurity, Infrastructure, Cloud Engineering, End User Computing, Application Development, Manufacturing, Business Integration, Compliance, Audit,and business stakeholders. Communicate service health, risk, investment needs, milestones, and decisions clearly to technical and executive audiences.
• Vendor & Ecosystem Management: Set the strategy for technology partners and managed service providers, including Microsoft and Ping Identity. Govern vendor performance, contracts, roadmaps, architecture alignment, service quality, and escalation while ensuring internal ownership of critical knowledge and decisions.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, information systems, cybersecurity, engineering, or a related discipline.
• 8+ years of experience in identity and access management, cybersecurity, infrastructure, or enterprise technology, including substantial leadership responsibility for global authentication and/or directory services.
• Demonstrated experience leading people managers and multidisciplinary engineering and operations teams in a large, complex enterprise environment.
• Strong technical depth across enterprise directory and authentication technologies, including Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, LDAP/LDAPS, directory schema and replication, Group Policy, DNS, hybrid identity, SAML, OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, federation, single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, and passwordless authentication.
• Experience owning strategy, architecture, engineering, operations, and reliability for business-critical identity services supporting more than 100k+ users and 4k+ global applications.
• Proven ability to lead modernization programs, manage technology and service providers, prioritize investments, and deliver measurable improvements in resilience, security, user experience, and cost.
• Experience directing major incident response, problem management, vulnerability remediation, disaster recovery, and operational risk reduction for high-availability services.
• Understanding of applicable security, privacy, and regulated-industry requirements, including Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), GxP, NIST-aligned controls, and global privacy obligations.
• Ability to communicate complex technical, security, financial, and operational issues to executive and non-technical stakeholders and to influence decisions across organizational boundaries.
• Willingness to remain technically engaged in critical architecture, risk, and incident decisions while leading primarily through managers and senior technical staff.
• Demonstrated experience in an agile work environment possessing qualities such as a collaborative mindset, adaptability to change, and a proactive problem-solving approach.

 

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Master's degree in a relevant discipline.
• Leadership experience in the pharmaceutical, life sciences, or another highly regulated global industry.
• Deep experience with Microsoft AD/Entra, Ping Federate, Ping One, Keyfactor, and PKI platforms
• Relevant security, identity, cloud, architecture, or service-management certifications.
• Experience modernizing legacy directory infrastructure and federation platforms

 

Please apply by sending your CV in English.

Work Location Assignment: Hybrid

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