Associate Director of Scientific Communications Excellence (12-month contract)

About the role

AstraZeneca is hiring an Associate Director of Scientific Communications Excellence for a 12-month contract. The role drives operational excellence and innovation across the Global Scientific Communications team, combining scientific communications, digital innovation and intelligent process design, with a focus on governance, continuous improvement, automation and AI-enabled capabilities. It works with team members and cross-functional stakeholders to standardise publication practices, automate and harmonise processes and ensure compliance and efficient use of resources.

Key responsibilities

• Champion publication excellence by mentoring team members, global stakeholders and medical writing agencies on good publication practices and AZ standards.
• Ensure audit readiness of the iEnvision publication platform through controls, documentation and governance.
• Help develop standards, SOPs and guidance documents aligned with compliance requirements (ICMJE, GPP2022, GDPR, Sunshine Act).
• Drive innovation by evaluating and adopting new formats, AI-enabled tools and automation technologies such as Power BI.
• Oversight of internal tools and systems, including training, user guidance, quality control and vendor coordination for iEnvision.
• Develop, track and report KPIs and operational metrics, turning data insights into recommendations for leadership.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in a scientific discipline; advanced degree preferred.
• 5-7 years of relevant experience in a pharmaceutical company or medical communications agency, with demonstrated operations or excellence experience.
• Proven project management and facilitation skills; PMP certification is a plus.
• Experience implementing publication guidelines and compliance requirements; CMPP certification is a plus.
• Hands-on experience with publication management and document repositories (e.g. iEnvision Datavision, SharePoint, Veeva).
• Some travel may be required to represent the company at professional societies and internal meetings.

Required skills

• Excel/Smartsheet, Microsoft Power BI and other reporting tools.
• Experience developing automation tools and working knowledge of AI-enabled tools.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving and stakeholder communication skills.