Global Study Director
About this opportunity
Introduction to role
Are you ready to lead the charge in groundbreaking clinical studies? As a Global Study Director (GSD), you will play a pivotal role in the Cell Therapy Clinical Operations organization, driving the operational planning and delivery of high-priority and complex clinical studies. Your expertise will ensure the successful execution of clinical trials, managing quality, timelines, budgets, resources, investigational sites, vendors, and key project deliverables. Leading a cross-functional study team, you will provide direction and guidance to achieve study milestones. Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to resolve issues and ensure compliance with SOPs, regulatory requirements, and ICH/GCP guidelines. Your leadership will extend to mentoring GSADs and spearheading non-drug programs and improvement projects.
Accountabilities
- Lead and coordinate a cross-functional study team to ensure clinical study progress according to timelines, budget, and quality standards.- Contribute to vendor/ESP selection activities and lead operational oversight at the study level.- Assist with operational planning for upcoming clinical studies, interfacing with cross-functional partners.- Collaborate to establish strategies for increasing efficiency of global study teams.- Facilitate communication across functions and provide guidance to study team members.- Serve as the primary AZ contact for outsourced studies, ensuring delivery according to agreed standards.- Hold accountability for essential study level documents development.- Ensure external service providers perform to contracted goals and timelines.- Develop and maintain relevant study plans, including risk management planning.- Oversee study level performance against plans, milestones, and KPIs.- Identify and report quality issues within the study and collaborate to overcome barriers.- Ensure Trial Master File completion and compliance with governance controls.- Manage study budget through lifecycle and provide progress reports.- Ensure studies are inspection-ready at all times.- Support professional development of team members.- Provide guidance and mentoring to less experienced colleagues.- Lead non-drug project work and improvement projects.
Essential Skills/Experience
- University degree or equivalent in medical or biological sciences or discipline associated with clinical research.- Proven project management experience and training.- At least 7 years of clinical trial experience.- At least 3 years of experience in global study leadership and team leadership.- Demonstrated clinical trial expertise in hematology and/or oncology.- Extensive knowledge of ICH-GCP guidelines and clinical research regulatory requirements.- Thorough understanding of the cross-functional clinical trial process.- Strong strategic and critical thinking abilities.- Proven skills in complex problem solving and decision-making.- Strong abilities in establishing effective working relationships with senior stakeholders.- Demonstrated abilities in mentoring.- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.- Ability to manage multiple competing priorities.- Experience in external provider oversight and management.
Desirable Skills/Experience
- Advanced degree, masters level education or higher.- Project management certification.- 5 years of experience in global study leadership and team leadership.- Significant hematology/oncology expertise.- Expertise in different phases of clinical delivery.- Experience with project management software solutions.- Cell therapy/CAR-T experience.- Global phase 3 study experience.
Date Posted
10-Aug-2026
Closing Date
30-Aug-2026 Our mission is to build an inclusive environment where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants and employees. In furtherance of that mission, we welcome and consider applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of their protected characteristics. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please complete the corresponding section in the application form.
Job details
How this role compares
Computed from every other active Clinical Development role in our database, not just this employer's listings.
We currently track 184 comparable Director Clinical Development roles across 28 biopharma companies.
Salary context
90 of 184 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)
Peers share this role's job function and a matching or adjacent seniority level -- not necessarily the same therapeutic area or country.
Where these roles are based
Top locations among the 184 comparable roles
+ 11 more countries
Seniority mix
184 of 184 peers have a known seniority level
Therapeutic area mix
78 of 184 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden
Similar opportunities
The closest matches from our peer group, ranked by how similar they are, not how well you'd qualify for them -- treat this as market context, not a guaranteed shortlist; a weak match is labeled as one below.
How we calculate "similar"
No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.
Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.
0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.