Senior Innovation Manager

At Roche you can show up as yourself, embraced for the unique qualities you bring. Our culture encourages personal expression, open dialogue, and genuine connections,  where you are valued, accepted and respected for who you are, allowing you to thrive both personally and professionally. This is how we aim to prevent, stop and cure diseases and ensure everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Join Roche, where every voice matters.

The Position

A healthier future. It’s what drives us to innovate. To continuously advance science and ensure everyone has access to the healthcare they need today and for generations to come. Creating a world where we all have more time with the people we love. That’s what makes us Roche.

Roche Diagnostics Solutions (RDS) is the market leader in the In-Vitro Diagnostics business. Within that ecosystem, Research & Early Development is the home for early research activities and plays an integral role in rapidly delivering innovation in discovery and specific customer area needs. For the business to remain competitive in the future, a dedicated management of innovation is of central importance.

To be successful as an Innovation Manager in our organization, a unique capability to thrive in ambiguity is needed, managing research process design to accelerate discovery while ensuring alignment with long-term business strategy. Beyond technical oversight, the role is defined by strategic diplomacy. An Innovation Manager must excel as a research ambassador, translating complex scientific impact into value propositions for diverse stakeholders.

The Opportunity:

● Influencing Without Authority: Using organizational and interpersonal awareness and finesse to drive delivery across levels.

● Systems Thinking: Navigating the interface between science, medical, and business sectors to manage dependencies at scale.

● Resilient Execution: Combining project management rigor with change management and persistence to ensure critical work reaches completion despite structural obstacles.

● Supports enterprise research in creating, funneling and harvesting cutting-edge innovation ideas, acts as a neutral thought partner to practice the idea acceptability

● Hosts innovation challenges addressing shared problem statements of global RDS Research

● Sparks and cultivates a cross-divisional innovation mindset, acts as change agent to coach the organization on the global research strategy and vision and advocate for the customer and the business role in innovation

● Uses independent evaluation, selection, and substantial adaptation and modification of standard project management and communication techniques, procedures and

criteria to navigate the complex flexible dynamic nature of research and early

development projects

● Actively builds and cultivates connections into the scientific network and maintains

expert knowledge of industry trends, competition, and emerging innovations,

contributes to strategic innovation roadmapping for early research

● Organizes and facilitates interdisciplinary workshops applying innovative and agile methodologies to achieve workshop outcomes in creative and effective ways, in order to contribute to problem discovery and challenge-driven ideation

● Plans, manages and monitors research operations to support the activities,

processes, communication and digital infrastructure of research and early

development and its innovation framework

● Collaborates cross-functionally with experts within Research & Development (R&D),CDMA (Clinical Development and Medical Affairs), Partnering and beyond

● Monitors and optimizes processes in order to increase quality and efficiency

standards, promotes and participates in the professional development of best

practices and process principles to manage risks, to achieve objectives in creative and effective ways and to increase quality and efficiency standards

● Coaches and trains other members of the team on the subject matter expertise, develops new skills and provides ongoing, constructive feedback on performance and progress toward goals and expectations on team and individual level

● Contribute to events in the RDS Enterprise Research space, publications and

conferences as needed

Who You Are:

● You are trained as a scientist (biologist, biochemist, chemist, physicist or a similar degree),ideally with a doctorate and at least 1 year of experience in the life science industry OR a Masters with at least 3-5 years experience in the life science industry.

● You possess profound Project Management skills, centered around communication and connection (methodologies, tools, mindsets). Experience managing DANCE (dynamic, ambiguous, non-linear, complex and emergent) projects especially in the research space preferred.

● You quickly understand complex tasks and translate them into something easy to execute. Operationalizing processes and handling complex ecosystems is something that excites you.

● You are a highly skilled networker with high emotional intelligence, a neutral process-focused mindset and the ability to establish strong and trusting relationships across many management levels.

● You are flexible, creative, self-motivated and result oriented, learning new things (content, technologies, processes, methods, etc.) is your second nature. You enjoy working within a multi-cultural and geographically diverse team with many interfaces.

● You possess excellent written and verbal communication skills and very good knowledge of English (spoken and written).

Preferred Qualifications:

●You have a certification as PMP (project management professional) and/or in Agile methodology (such as Scrum master, SAFe or Agile PMP (PMI-ACP)

The expected salary range for this position is based on the primary location of Pleasanton, CA .119,600-222,000 USD Annual Actual pay will be determined based on experience, qualifications, geographic location, and other job-related factors permitted by law. A discretionary annual bonus may be available based on individual and Company performance. 

This position also qualifies for the benefits detailed here: Benefits

Relocation benefits are not available for this position

Who we are

A healthier future drives us to innovate. Together, more than 100’000 employees across the globe are dedicated to advance science, ensuring everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Our efforts result in more than 26 million people treated with our medicines and over 30 billion tests conducted using our Diagnostics products. We empower each other to explore new possibilities, foster creativity, and keep our ambitions high, so we can deliver life-changing healthcare solutions that make a global impact.

Let’s build a healthier future, together.

Roche is an equal opportunity employer. It is our policy and practice to employ, promote, and otherwise treat any and all employees and applicants on the basis of merit, qualifications, and competence. The company's policy prohibits unlawful discrimination, including but not limited to, discrimination on the basis of Protected Veteran status, individuals with disabilities status, and consistent with all federal, state, or local laws.

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