Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

Working with Us

Challenging. Meaningful. Life-changing. Those aren’t words that are usually associated with a job. But working at Bristol Myers Squibb is anything but usual. Here, uniquely interesting work happens every day, in every department. From optimizing a production line to the latest breakthroughs in cell therapy, this is work that transforms the lives of patients, and the careers of those who do it. You’ll get the chance to grow and thrive through opportunities uncommon in scale and scope, alongside high-achieving teams. Take your career farther than you thought possible.

Bristol Myers Squibb recognizes the importance of balance and flexibility in our work environment. We offer a wide variety of competitive benefits, services and programs that provide our employees with the resources to pursue their goals, both at work and in their personal lives. Read more: careers.bms.com/working-with-us.

Summary:

Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) is seeking an exceptional technology leader for the role of Senior, Strategy & Application Operations – R&D Business Insights and Technology (BI&T). This position, based in Princeton, NJ, will lead the strategy, program management, and application operations function within BMS’s R&D BI&T organization – a global team of 400+ professionals driving digital innovation across Research & Development and Real-World Data domains. Reporting to the Senior Vice President of R&D BI&T, the Senior Director will manage a portfolio of over 300 software applications critical to R&D, ensuring these platforms are reliable, secure, and aligned with the company’s scientific and business objectives and that we have a consistent and sustainable support model working with vendors and internal shared services.

In this visible role within BI&T, you will provide program management and operational oversight for the R&D technology portfolio, with a focus on financial governance, operational excellence, and value delivery. You will collaborate with stakeholders across the enterprise (IT and R&D) to maintain operational metrics on technology initiatives that support drug discovery and development. The ideal candidate combines a continuous improvement mindset with strong execution skills – ensuring reliability, and transparency on the R&D BI&T portfolio, clearly demonstrating how we create value for BMS, and operational excellence across all product teams. This role requires outstanding leadership, communication, and organizational savvy, as you will influence, foster cross-functional partnerships, and develop talent within a multi-disciplinary team that has visibility into work across R&D.

Responsibilities

• Portfolio Strategy & Governance: Facilitate the strategic planning and prioritization for a large-scale R&D software application portfolio (300+ applications), ensuring alignment with R&D objectives and overall BMS technology strategy. Establish governance processes for portfolio management, financial oversight, and investment prioritization to maximize value and ROI.
• Operational Excellence: Maintain and report operational metrics on the end-to-end application operations for R&D and Real-World Data domains, driving high reliability, performance, and compliance of all platforms. Implement best practices in IT service management and continuous improvement to ensure that R&D systems are fit for purpose and meet evolving business needs.
• Team Leadership: Manage and mentor a direct team of approximately 30 operations professionals, including managers of application operations, communications, and project management office (PMO) staff. Foster a high-performance culture focused on talent development, accountability, and innovation. Provide clear direction and support to enable your team’s success and build future leadership capability.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaboration with technical teams, BI&T, and R&D business leaders, ensuring effective communication and alignment of priorities, supporting the SVP BI&T. Partner closely with other IT and business executives (e.g. Clinical, Regulatory, Quality, Data Science, Commercial).
• Integration Projects: Program Manage the R&D technology components of mergers, acquisitions, or external partnerships, leading integration efforts for systems and data. Coordinate across enterprise IT, security, and business stakeholders to seamlessly integrate acquired assets or capabilities into BMS’s R&D ecosystem, minimizing disruption and accelerating value capture.
• Enterprise Architecture & Security Alignment: Collaborate with the Enterprise Architecture, Cybersecurity, and Infrastructure teams to ensure R&D applications adhere to company-wide architecture standards, data integrity policies, and security/compliance requirements. Champion initiatives to modernize the application landscape (e.g. cloud adoption, data integration) in line with enterprise guidelines and industry best practices.
• Performance Transparency & Reporting: Drive transparency in portfolio performance by defining key performance indicators (KPIs) and outcome metrics for the R&D BI&T portfolio. Develop dashboards and regular executive reports highlighting progress, value delivered, system uptime, and other critical metrics. Communicate results and insights to R&D leadership and other stakeholders to inform decision-making and demonstrate the impact of technology investments.
• Strategic Planning & Innovation: Plan and organize workshops with BI&T leadership and R&D stakeholders to identify emerging needs and technology trends (e.g. AI/ML, data analytics, digital lab tools) and demonstrate technology capabilities that can and could generate value for the R&D organization. Facilitate the assembly of the multi-year technology roadmap and quarterly portfolio review of deliverables and ensure a positive impact on R&D productivity and effective execution against priorities.
• Operational Risk Management: Proactively identify and mitigate operational risks across the application portfolio, including dependency management, vendor performance, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and lifecycle risks (e.g. legacy system modernization). Ensure robust business continuity and disaster recovery plans are in place for critical R&D systems working with product teams, Enterprise IT, and cybersecurity teams.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Build and maintain strong relationships with R&D operations teams, BI&T Leadership, and other key stakeholders. Serve as a trusted advisor who can address needs regarding technology support for R&D and negotiate priorities or trade-offs when necessary. Influence and negotiate with stakeholders to drive decisions that have a long-term impact on R&D technology capabilities.

Required Qualifications:

• Education & Experience: Bachelor's degree in computer science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field is required; an advanced degree (M.S., Ph.D., or MBA) is a plus. A Minimum of 12 years of relevant IT experience, including substantial experience in leadership roles managing large-scale application portfolios or IT programs.
• Strategic Leadership: Proven track record of setting technology strategy and delivering large, complex initiatives with enterprise-wide impact. Demonstrated ability to define a vision and execute it, aligning multiple projects with business goals.
• Operational & Financial Acumen: Strong experience in IT operations management and financial governance. Able to oversee budgets and portfolios, ensuring cost-effective delivery of technology solutions and measurable value. Familiarity with managing operational KPIs, service level agreements, and continuous improvement programs.
• Stakeholder Management: Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate with senior executives and cross-functional partners. Comfortable presenting to executive committees and adept at negotiating critical matters to achieve alignment.
• Enterprise Mindset: Experience working in a complex, global organization, preferably in a highly regulated industry. Proven ability to navigate complex operational ecosystems and manage inter-departmental dynamics effectively. Broad understanding of how to integrate technology solutions across a large enterprise environment.
• Team Development: Demonstrated strength in people leadership, with a proven track record of building and leading high-performing teams. Committed to coaching, mentoring, and developing talent; able to manage managers and guide diverse technical teams through change.
• Adaptability: High level of learning agility and problem-solving skills. Comfortable managing ambiguity and rapidly changing priorities while maintaining focus on strategic objectives. Capable of balancing big-picture thinking with attention to detail in execution.
• Technical Breadth: Familiarity with enterprise-scale technology environments and a wide range of software applications (e.g. data platforms, SaaS solutions, custom applications). While deep expertise in specific tools is not required, the candidate should demonstrate the ability to oversee complex application ecosystems and evaluate new technologies for potential use in R&D.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Industry Knowledge: Experience in the biopharmaceutical or life sciences sector, especially supporting R&D functions (discovery, clinical development, data science, etc.), is highly desirable. Understanding the drug development process and related data/compliance requirements (e.g. GxP, data privacy) is a strong advantage.
• M&A Integration Experience: Proven involvement in technology integration during mergers, acquisitions, or large-scale partnerships. Experience aligning disparate systems and teams post-acquisition is a plus.
• Advanced Education: Master's degree in business administration, Information Technology, or a related field. Relevant certifications in project management (PMP), IT service management (ITIL), or enterprise architecture are beneficial but not required.
• Innovation & Continuous Improvement: A track record of driving innovation or process improvements in IT. Demonstrated curiosity about new technologies (such as artificial intelligence, data analytics, or cloud computing) and how they can be applied to solve business problems.
• Global/Matrix Experience: Experience leading teams across multiple geographies and working in a matrix organizational structure. Comfortable managing vendor relationships and external partnerships that augment internal capabilities.

Reporting Structure:

This position reports to the Senior Vice President, R&D Business Insights & Technology, and is a key member of the R&D BI&T leadership team. The Senior Director will interface regularly with other IT and R&D stakeholders at all levels to ensure alignment of technology initiatives. The role includes direct management of a team of ~30 professionals and contributes tools for effective oversight and management of all investments in R&D technology and all systems used in production.

The starting compensation for this job is a range from $230,000 - $260,000, plus incentive cash and stock opportunities (based on eligibility).

The starting pay rate takes into account characteristics of the job, such as required skills and where the job is performed.

Final, individual compensation will be decided based on demonstrated experience.

Eligibility for specific benefits listed on our careers site may vary based on the job and location. For more on benefits, please visit https://careers.bms.com/life-at-bms/.

Benefit offerings are subject to the terms and conditions of the applicable plans then in effect and may include the following: Medical, pharmacy, dental and vision care. Wellbeing support such as the BMS Living Life Better program and employee assistance programs (EAP). Financial well-being resources and a 401(K). Financial protection benefits such as short- and long-term disability, life insurance, supplemental health insurance, business travel protection and survivor support. Work-life programs include paid national holidays and optional holidays, Global Shutdown Days between Christmas and New Year’s holiday, up to 120 hours of paid vacation, up to two (2) paid days to volunteer, sick time off, and summer hours flexibility. Parental, caregiver, bereavement, and military leave. Family care services such as adoption and surrogacy reimbursement, fertility/infertility benefits, support for traveling mothers, and child, elder and pet care resources. Other perks like tuition reimbursement and a recognition program.

If you come across a role that intrigues you but doesn’t perfectly line up with your resume, we encourage you to apply anyway. You could be one step away from work that will transform your life and career.

Uniquely Interesting Work, Life-changing Careers

With a single vision as inspiring as “Transforming patients’ lives through science™ ”, every BMS employee plays an integral role in work that goes far beyond ordinary. Each of us is empowered to apply our individual talents and unique perspectives in a supportive culture, promoting global participation in clinical trials, while our shared values of passion, innovation, urgency, accountability, inclusion and integrity bring out the highest potential of each of our colleagues.

On-site Protocol

BMS has an occupancy structure that determines where an employee is required to conduct their work. This structure includes site-essential, site-by-design, field-based and remote-by-design jobs. The occupancy type that you are assigned is determined by the nature and responsibilities of your role:

Site-essential roles require 100% of shifts onsite at your assigned facility. Site-by-design roles may be eligible for a hybrid work model with at least 50% onsite at your assigned facility. For these roles, onsite presence is considered an essential job function and is critical to collaboration, innovation, productivity, and a positive Company culture. For field-based and remote-by-design roles the ability to physically travel to visit customers, patients or business partners and to attend meetings on behalf of BMS as directed is an essential job function.

BMS is dedicated to ensuring that people with disabilities can excel through a transparent recruitment process, reasonable workplace accommodations/adjustments and ongoing support in their roles. Applicants can request a reasonable workplace accommodation/adjustment prior to accepting a job offer. If you require reasonable accommodations/adjustments in completing this application, or in any part of the recruitment process, direct your inquiries to adastaffingsupport@bms.com. Visit careers.bms.com/eeo-accessibility to access our complete Equal Employment Opportunity statement.

BMS cares about your well-being and the well-being of our staff, customers, patients, and communities. As a result, the Company strongly recommends that all employees be fully vaccinated for Covid-19 and keep up to date with Covid-19 boosters.

BMS will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, pursuant to applicable laws in your area.

If you live in or expect to work from Los Angeles County if hired for this position, please visit this page for important additional information: https://careers.bms.com/california-residents/

Any data processed in connection with role applications will be treated in accordance with applicable data privacy policies and regulations.