R&D Insights & Enablement Lead (Director)

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Job Description

Are you looking for a patient-focused, innovation-driven company that will inspire you and empower you to shine? Join us as a R&D Insights & Enablement Lead in our Cambridge, MA office.

 

At Takeda, we are transforming the pharmaceutical industry through our R&D-driven market leadership and being a values-led company. To do this, we empower our people to realize their potential through life-changing work. Certified as a Global Top Employer, we offer stimulating careers, encourage innovation, and strive for excellence in everything we do. We foster an inclusive, collaborative workplace, in which our global teams are united by an unwavering commitment to deliver Better Health and a Brighter Future to people around the world.

 

Here, you will be a vital contributor to our inspiring, bold mission.

 

POSITION OBJECTIVES:

 

Lead R&D Insights & Enablement efforts that enable performance, accountability, and decision excellence across R&D. Generate the insights and coordinate structured forums that enable R&D leaders to make better, faster, evidence-based decisions, and ensure that what is learned at the portfolio level is translated back into how Global Program Teams operate. Serve as the orchestration point for the monthly R&D Decisions & Insights Forum (the merger of the DAC and QPI cadences), the R&D Portfolio Orchestration & Direction (POD) Team, and the R&D Risk Register — connecting senior R&D leadership, enterprise functions, as well as the GPT community so that decisions, lessons learned, and emerging trends move quickly into action.

 

• Coordinate the monthly R&D decisions & insights forum and Portfolio Orchestration & Direction (POD) Council meetings, ensuring high-quality content, decision readiness, and clear follow-through.
• Close the loop between insights and ways of working — translating lessons learned and trends into clear, sustainable inputs for GPT Enablement so they reach GPT communities and shape practice.
• Maintain the R&D Risk Register as a living instrument of portfolio risk visibility, escalation, and learning, including any governance, oversight and presentation.
• Lead/Co-lead the monthly Portfolio Orchestration & Direction (POD) Council — convening cross-functional R&D and enterprise leaders to advise on key initiatives and direct how we evolve core processes, tools, and change implementation.
• Support corporate philosophy updates and the Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) for the R&D President, ensuring high-quality preparation, narrative, and follow-through.
• Leverage R&D insights, pipeline & governance knowledge to inform evolution of GPT Enterprise Operating Model, embedding this in supporting resources to drive ongoing learning and continuous improvement
• Coordinates insights for the GPL Development Program, focused on continuously strengthening the capabilities of Global Program Leaders against a shared profile of success.
• Liaises with GPLs to understand development needs, procedural challenges, and shared learning priorities, translating insights to contribute to structured agendas for the GPL Exchange and GPL Forum; Curates targeted resource development plans for process and best practices to address priority gaps and accelerate execution
• Generates multi-disciplinary program development frameworks in partnership with key stakeholders across Therapeutic areas, business units and global commercial, embedding those frameworks into enterprise global program teams (e.g., Asset Strategy, Program Scenario Plans)
• Partners with key stakeholders, including but not limited to SP&E peers, TAU, Functional and Commercial leaders to prioritize and execute initiatives which drive continuous GPL and GPT effectiveness improvement.
• Fosters an enterprise community of program leadership inclusive of R&D, SPD, Global Oncology, and Plasma-Derived Therapies.
• Owns and ensures effective content and delivery of the enterprise-wide GPT Onboarding Program

 

 

POSITION ACCOUNTABILITIES:

 

R&D Decisions & Insights Forum (DAC)

• Design and run the monthly R&D Decisions & Insights Forum, including agenda, content curation, pre-reads, and post-meeting follow-through.
• Partner with R&D leadership, RMC, Governance, and program teams to surface the right portfolio and operational questions, decisions, and learning topics each month — focused on what will move performance, quality, and decision excellence.
• Memorialize decisions, action items, and lessons learned from each forum and track them to completion, ensuring the forum is a high-signal decision and learning instrument, not a status meeting.

 

R&D Risk Register Stewardship

• Own the R&D Risk Register end-to-end — definition, intake, prioritization, mitigation tracking, and escalation pathways — keeping it current, credible, and actionable.
• Evolve and continuously strengthen the risk management process itself — instilling greater rigor and discipline through clear processes for collection, consistent scoring and prioritization criteria, leadership review, defined review cadences, and accountable ownership, so risks are identified, assessed, and escalated in a repeatable, evidence-based way.
• Partner with program, functional, and governance leaders to identify emerging risks (scientific, operational, compliance, talent, technology) and to ensure mitigations are owned and progressing.
• Translate risk register patterns into systemic recommendations — feeding insights into the Decisions & Insights (DAC) Forum, the R&D Portfolio Orchestration & Direction Council, and GPT Enablement so risks shape process and practice, not just reports.

 

Leadership/Co-Leadership of the R&D Portfolio Orchestration & Direction Council

• Lead/Co-lead the monthly R&D Portfolio Orchestration & Direction Council — a cross-functional forum of R&D leaders with participation from enterprise functions — that advises on key initiatives, aligns on key planning cycle activities and directs how the organization evolves core processes, tools, and change implementation.
• Shape the Council's agenda so it focuses on the most consequential cross-cutting issues — process changes, system investments, governance evolution, and adoption priorities — and produces clear directional decisions.
• Connect Council direction to execution by routing decisions and recommendations to the right owners and tracking follow-through.

 

Corporate Philosophy Updates & Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) Support

• Support periodic updates to the R&D Corporate Philosophy — coordinating inputs, analyses, and narrative development to keep the philosophy current and clearly communicated to internal and external audiences.
• Support the Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) for the R&D President — coordinating planning, prereads, content development, and follow-up so SAG sessions generate sharp scientific and strategic input that flows back into portfolio decisions.
• Partner with Communications, Governance, and the R&D President's office to ensure presentations, narratives, and materials are high-quality, on-message, and on time.

 

GPT Enablement

• Run the GPL Development Program operating rhythm — assessing Global Program Leader capabilities against the shared profile of success and converting gaps into targeted development priorities.
• Tailor the GPL Exchange and GPL Forum engagement— building agendas from GPL-sourced development needs/interests and delivering process and best-practice resources that close priority gaps and accelerate execution.
• Develop multi-disciplinary program frameworks (e.g., Asset Strategy, Program Scenario Plans) with Therapeutic Areas, business units, and Global Commercial, and embed them into how enterprise global program teams operate.
• Advance enterprise GPL and GPT effectiveness with Therapeutic Area and Business Unit Heads — prioritizing, sponsoring, and tracking initiatives through to measurable improvement.

 

Lessons Learned, Trend Identification & Feedback to GPT Enablement

• Translate lessons learned from the Decisions & Insights Forum, Risk Register, and GPT Community and other R&D sources into clear, structured inputs for GPT Enablement — so learnings reach across R&D communities and shape ways of working.
• Identify cross-program trends and systemic patterns — not just one-off events — and frame them in language that can be operationalized into playbooks, training, digital tools and standards.
• Establish a recurring handoff rhythm with the Head of GPT Enablement and the GPT Enablement Leads, and other SP&E leaders as appropriate— ensuring each cycle of insight produces a concrete update to guidance, training, digital tools or community communications.
• Close the loop by tracking which lessons were translated into practice or process and surfacing residual gaps back to leadership.
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EDUCATION, BEHAVIORAL COMPETENCIES AND SKILLS:

 

• Bachelor's degree in a science, engineering, or business-related field required; advanced science or business degree preferred. Typically 12+ years of relevant experience in pharmaceutical R&D, portfolio management, strategy, or operational excellence.
• Demonstrated experience leading executive-level decision forums, governance cadences, or portfolio review processes in a global pharmaceutical or comparable regulated R&D environment.
• Strong analytical orientation — able to define KPIs, interpret trends, separate signal from noise, and frame data into clear narratives that drive decisions.
• Working knowledge of drug development end-to-end, portfolio governance, and the data and systems that support R&D decision-making (e.g., PTRS, benchmarking, operational health indicators).
• Experience designing and maintaining enterprise risk registers, or comparable structured risk management programs in a complex matrix organization.
• Excellent facilitation, influencing, and stakeholder management skills — able to convene senior leaders, hold space for hard conversations, and drive to clear decisions and actions.
• Strong writing and executive narrative skills — able to develop slides, briefs, and presentations that are clear, credible, and decision-oriented.
• Collaborative mindset; partners effectively with peers across Strategic Planning & Enablement, DD&T, Finance, and Governance.
• Health care business acumen with a comprehensive understanding of the pharmaceutical industry and R&D operating environment.
• PMP, Lean / Six Sigma, or comparable process / portfolio credential preferred

 

This position is currently classified as “ hybrid” in accordance with Takeda’s Hybrid and Remote Work policy.

 

Empowering Our People to Shine

 

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Takeda Compensation and Benefits Summary

We understand compensation is an important factor as you consider the next step in your career. We are committed to equitable pay for all employees, and we strive to be more transparent with our pay practices. 

For Location:

Boston, MA

U.S. Base Salary Range:

$177,000.00 - $278,080.00

The estimated salary range reflects an anticipated range for this position. The actual base salary offered may depend on a variety of factors, including the qualifications of the individual applicant for the position, years of relevant experience, specific and unique skills, level of education attained, certifications or other professional licenses held, and the location in which the applicant lives and/or from which they will be performing the job. The actual base salary offered will be in accordance with state or local minimum wage requirements for the job location. 

For information about our benefits, please click here.

EEO Statement

Takeda is proud in its commitment to creating a diverse workforce and providing equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, parental status, national origin, age, disability, citizenship status, genetic information or characteristics, marital status, status as a Vietnam era veteran, special disabled veteran, or other protected veteran in accordance with applicable federal, state and local laws, and any other characteristic protected by law.

Locations

Boston, MA

Worker Type

Employee

Worker Sub-Type

Regular

Time Type

Full time

Job Exempt

Yes

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