Safety Process and Vendor Excellence Director
About this opportunity
Location: Barcelona - Spain (3 days working from the office and 2 days working from home)
Introduction to the role
This role will be part of the team leading transformational business change in the way
we deliver local Patient Safety activities. The role will focus on innovation across all
safety processes as we harmonise local safety activities across AstraZeneca and Alexion.
The role will play a significant part in the onboarding, performance and oversight of the
new strategic vendor for local adverse event handling.
Typical Accountabilities
Responsible for driving process innovation across areas of local Patient Safety as defined
by the Safety Process and Vendor Excellence Senior Director.
Point of contact for Global Patient Safety and cross-functional colleagues in relation to
local safety processes.
Promotes and implements continuous improvement activities across all areas of Patient
Safety to optimize productivity and quality.
Works closely with Global Process Owners to ensure local and global alignment across
allocated areas of patient safety
Drives the oversight of the centralised model for local handling of adverse events across
all markets and across the AstraZeneca portfolio. This role will be a subject matter
expert and a key interface between the Business and operational vendors to deliver
operational excellence.
This role will be accountable for the preparation and delivery of process training across
allocated areas of local Patient Safety.
This role demonstrates understanding of, and maintains awareness of new Patient.
Safety trends and developments and uses these to improve local safety processes/meet
external regulations. Maintains a deep focus on using technology and artificial
intelligence to drive automation, and productivity increases.
Supports audits and inspections concerning local safety activities/processes (both back-
room support and inspector/auditor interviews).
Completes assigned training and maintains personal training records, dedicates time to self-development and works with manager to develop a dedicated personal development plan.
Education, Qualifications, Skills and Experience
Essential
Science degree or equivalent healthcare professional qualification
Experience working in Patient Safety in an above-country role and/or with vendors
Maintains an up to date knowledge of international patient safety regulations.
Substantial Patient Safety experience at a market level
Person with a CAN-DO attitude who brings in genuinely innovative ideas to the table and willing to effectively collaborate with local and global market stakeholders to deliver business transformation
Verbal and written English skills are mandatory
Desirable
Extensive knowledge of the latest technical and regulatory expectations
Experience of pharmacovigilance vendor management
Experience of leading or participating in large change initiatives
Experience of driving process efficiency through process re-design and/or technology.
Date Posted
30-sept-2026
Closing Date
13-oct-2026
AstraZeneca embraces diversity and equality of opportunity. We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team representing all backgrounds, with as wide a range of perspectives as possible, and harnessing industry-leading skills. We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be. We welcome and consider applications to join our team from all qualified candidates, regardless of their characteristics. We comply with all applicable laws and regulations on non-discrimination in employment (and recruitment), as well as work authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements.
Job details
How this role compares
Computed from every other active role in our database, not just this employer's listings.
We currently track 3889 comparable Director roles across 128 biopharma companies.
Salary context
747 of 3889 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 3889 comparable roles
+ 71 more countries
Seniority mix
762 of 3889 peers have a known seniority level
Therapeutic area mix
312 of 3889 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.
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.
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.