Merck KGaA Posted August 15, 2026

Senior Director, Group Portfolio Execution Lead, Integration & Carve-Out

Burlington, Massachusetts, United States FULL_TIME
BD&L & Strategic Planning Senior Director

Merck KGaA is the source of truth for this posting and owns the application process. We surface normalized context and market comparison you won't find on the original listing.

About this opportunity

Work Location:  Burlington, Massachusetts

Shift:  No

Department:  EF-MA Group Strategy, M&A and Venturing

Recruiter:  Martin Baltes

This information is for internals only. Please do not share outside of the organization.

Your Role

As Senior Director, Group Portfolio Execution Lead (Integration & Carve-Out), you will own the end-to-end execution of our large-scale strategic integration and carve-out programs. In this role, you will shape organizational performance while managing complex projects with high risk and global reach.

Reporting to the Head of Group Portfolio Execution, you will join a highly energetic, mission-driven team of experienced integration and carve-out leaders delivering strategic initiatives across our three sectors.

Key Responsibilities

End-to-end program ownership:

Own and lead assigned integration and/or carve-out projects and programs end-to-end, serving as the primary point of contact with full accountability across all workstreams.

Due diligence and scope definition:

Represent integration interests during due diligence and Define and document deal scope (including separation/integration boundaries, deliverables, milestones, and dependencies).

Execution strategy and governance:

Design, drive, and monitor a structured, disciplined implementation strategy, from project set-up and timeline planning through milestone delivery.

Stakeholder leadership and alignment:

Build trusted partnerships and engage internal and external stakeholders, including senior leaders and key decision-makers; maintain alignment and drive timely decisions.

Cross-functional mobilization:

Mobilize and coordinate cross-functional team members; provide clear direction and oversight for accountabilities and assignments.

Operating model & organizational design:

Drive creation and sign-off of the future (target) operating model.

For carve-outs, drive creation and sign-off of the future (functional) operating model, legal entity structure, and pre-structuring.

Ensure people and organizational aspects (culture, org design, retention and engagement, capability identification and preservation) are appropriately considered and managed.

Country-level delivery: Ensure smooth integration delivery at country level.

Drive execution of country separation cross-functionally for carve-outs.

Risk, compliance, and decision-making:

Drive fast decision-making by proactively identifying and resolving risks and pivoting course decisively to protect deal success. Ensure full compliance with legal and regulatory requirements throughout the transaction lifecycle, safeguarding our organizational and financial interests.

Financial stewardship:

Plan and manage overall integration/separation cost budgets.

Post-closing agreements and service delivery:

For carve-outs: Lead end-to-end definition, implementation, and delivery of post-closing services, including Manufacturing Supply Agreements (MSAs) and Transitional Service Agreements (TSAs).

For integrations: Lead and manage post-closing agreement exits in a fast and cost-effective way.

Value realization and performance tracking:

Understand and communicate concerns, motivations, and needs of all entities to ensure maximum benefit is realized and business momentum is maintained/increased.

Track and report performance against milestones, deliverables, and synergy/value-creation targets (including top- and bottom-line synergies where applicable).

Communication and escalation:

Maintain a structured approach for keeping stakeholders informed, reporting progress against financial and non-financial targets, surfacing roadblocks, and driving timely escalation to senior leadership.

Handover and sustainability:

Create a clear roadmap and transition plan for handover and ongoing ownership.

Team leadership and capability building:

Lead, mentor, and support a high-performing project team, fostering collaboration, professional growth, and knowledge sharing. Continuously evolve integration/carve-out execution best practices and contribute to best-practice building across the company

Who You Are

Master’s degree (e.g., Business Administration, Economics, Finance, or related fields), MBA is preferred

Minimum 10 years of experience in global, matrixed organizations.

Minimum 8 years of experience in management consulting or similar roles, with demonstrated success steering large cross-functional teams and overseeing substantial resources in complex environments.

Minimum 8 years leading operational post-merger integrations and/or carve-out executions/business separations across deal types (e.g., share deals, asset deals, IPOs/spin-offs, standalone/incubator integrations, partial integrations), with a proven track record in high-stakes environments.

Proficient financial literacy and experience in financial due diligence, valuation, and the M&A lifecycle.

Broad-based knowledge and project experience in our relevant industries (Life Science, Healthcare, and/or Electronics) with curiosity about technologies shaping our company´s future.

Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, underpinned by systems thinking and attention to detail.

Skilled at communication and building credibility and networks, from working teams to C-suite, internally and with external partners.

Strong business acumen: deep understanding of business processes and operating models; knowledge of financial analysis, ROI analysis, and key performance indicators.

Continuous learning orientation; ability to quickly acquire new skills and domain knowledge in evolving business contexts.

Strong AI literacy or interest in AI, including critical thinking and experience with AI tools, concepts, and prompt engineering to accelerate project execution and knowledge management.

Location: Branchburg, NJ, USA

Travel:

Pay range for this position: $189,200.00 - $283,800.00

The offer range represents the anticipated low and high end of the base pay compensation for this position. The actual compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, level of experience, education, skills, and other job-related factors. Position may be eligible for sales or performance-based bonuses. Benefits offered by the Company include health insurance, paid time off (PTO), retirement contributions, and other perquisites. For more information click  here .

The Company is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. No employee or applicant for employment will be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, genetic information, gender identity, transgender status, marital status, or any other classification protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.  This policy of Equal Employment Opportunity applies to all policies and programs relating to recruitment and hiring, promotion, compensation, benefits, discipline, termination, and all other terms and conditions of employment. Any applicant or employee who believes they have been discriminated against by the Company or anyone acting on behalf of the Company must report any concerns to their Human Resources Business Partner, Legal, or Compliance immediately. The Company will not retaliate against any individual because they made a good faith report of discrimination.

Job details

Seniority
Senior Director
Function
BD&L & Strategic Planning
Therapeutic area
Not listed
Location
Burlington, Massachusetts, United States
Employment type
FULL_TIME

How this role compares

Computed from every other active BD&L & Strategic Planning role in our database, not just this employer's listings.

We currently track 37 comparable Senior Director BD&L & Strategic Planning roles across 15 biopharma companies.

37Comparable roles tracked
36Currently active
15Companies hiring similar roles
6Countries represented

Salary context

15 of 37 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.

This roleSubject $189,200/yr – $283,800/yr
Lowest disclosed · Director, Group Portfolio Execution · Merck KGaA $151,900/yr – $227,900/yr
Peer group range $189,900 – $355,000 (median $265,000)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 37 comparable roles

United States20
China7
United Kingdom4
Germany4
Spain1
Switzerland1

Seniority mix

37 of 37 peers have a known seniority level

Director26
Executive/VP7
Senior Director4

Therapeutic area mix

7 of 37 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Oncology3
Immunology3
Cardiovascular / CVRM1

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.

60%similar
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50%similar
Gilead Sciences, Inc. Foster City, United States Executive/VP
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50%similar
Gilead Sciences, Inc. Foster City, United States Executive/VP
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50%similar
Novartis East Hanover, United States Director
Same function Adjacent seniority Same country
50%similar
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc (USA) Tarrytown, United States Executive/VP
Same function Adjacent seniority Same country

Notify me about similar jobs

Get an email when we spot other openings like this one – same job function, comparable seniority, roles you'd actually want to see.

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.

60%
Sr. Director, Strategic Partnerships, External Surfaces
Pfizer · New York City, United States · Senior Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
50%
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Oncology Strategy Director
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Unmatched or unknown dimensions score exactly the same: 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.