About this opportunity
Company Description
About AbbVie
AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas including immunology, oncology and neuroscience - and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us at www.abbvie.com . Follow @abbvie on LinkedIn, Facebook , Instagram , X and YouTube.
Job Description
The Senior Director, Global Study Start-Up (SSU) is accountable for leading study start-up strategy, talent, and execution across the AbbVie portfolio. This role oversees AbbVie Global Study Startup group and drives consistent, high-quality delivery of global start-up milestones through strong talent leadership, proactive risk management, standardized and continuously improved processes, and scaled adoption of AI-enabled ways of working. The Senior Director serves as a key business partner across Clinical Study Leadership, Regulatory, Clinical Site Management, and other stakeholders to accelerate study activation while maintaining compliance. This role reports into Vice President, Neuroscience Clinical Study Leadership and Global Study Start Up.
Responsibilities:
1. Strategic Leadership & Operating Model
Define and execute the long-term vision, strategy, and operating model for the Global Study Start-Up organization.
Establish enterprise standards, governance, and performance expectations across therapeutic areas and geographies.
Drive organizational design and workforce strategies to meet current and future portfolio demands.
Lead transformation initiatives that improve scalability, efficiency, quality, and business impact.
2. Portfolio & Business Leadership
Provide strategic oversight of start-up performance across the global portfolio.
Advise senior Clinical Development and TA leaders on portfolio feasibility, activation strategy, resource allocation, and execution risk.
Drive portfolio-level decision making through data-driven insights, predictive analytics, and scenario planning.
3. Innovation & Digital Transformation
Champion modernization of study start-up through AI, automation, predictive analytics, and digital technologies.
Evaluate and scale emerging technologies, vendors, and innovative capabilities.
4. Enterprise Leadership & Influence
Represent Study Start-Up across governance forums and enterprise initiatives.
Influence enterprise priorities, organizational strategies, and ways of working impacting clinical development performance.
5. Talent & Organizational Capability
Build and sustain a high-performing leadership team through succession planning, talent development, and organizational effectiveness.
Develop future leaders and establish enterprise capability-building strategies.
6. External Leadership
Represent AbbVie in industry forums and strategic partnerships.
Monitor industry, regulatory, and competitive trends and translate insights into organizational strategy.
Qualifications
Bachelor's degree required; advanced scientific or business degree preferred.
Minimum 15 years of pharmaceutical clinical development experience, including significant global leadership responsibility within Study Start-Up, Clinical Operations, or related functions.
Demonstrated success leading large global organizations and complex matrix environments
Proven experience developing organizational strategy and delivering transformational change at scale
Track record influencing executive leadership and driving enterprise-wide initiatives.
Expertise in global clinical development, study start-up strategy, regulatory environments, and portfolio management.
Experience leading digital transformation, AI adoption, automation initiatives, and operational excellence programs.
Strong financial, resource planning, workforce planning, and organizational design capabilities.
Exceptional executive communication, stakeholder management, and change leadership skills.
Key Stakeholders: R&D Leadership team, Country Affiliate leadership
Additional Information
Applicable only to applicants applying to a position in any location with pay disclosure requirements under state or local law:
The compensation range described below is the range of possible base pay compensation that the Company believes in good faith it will pay for this role at the time of this posting based on the job grade for this position. Individual compensation paid within this range will depend on many factors including geographic location, and we may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range may be modified in the future.
We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick), medical/dental/vision insurance and 401(k) to eligible employees.
This job is eligible to participate in our long-term incentive programs.
Note: No amount of pay is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission, incentive, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole and absolute discretion unless and until paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole and absolute discretion, consistent with applicable law.
AbbVie is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to operating with integrity, driving innovation, transforming lives and serving our community. Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled.
US & Puerto Rico only - to learn more, visit https://www.abbvie.com/join-us/equal-employment-opportunity-employer.html
US & Puerto Rico applicants seeking a reasonable accommodation, click here to learn more:
https://www.abbvie.com/join-us/reasonable-accommodations.html
Job details
How this role compares
Computed from every other active Clinical Research role in our database, not just this employer's listings.
We currently track 8 comparable Senior Director Clinical Research roles across 5 biopharma companies.
Salary context
6 of 8 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 8 comparable roles
Seniority mix
8 of 8 peers have a known seniority level
Therapeutic area mix
2 of 8 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.
Open in 2 locations
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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.