Senior Project Manager / Team Leader - Axial Technologies

at  AstraZeneca

Do you have expertise in, and passion for, information technology? Would you like to apply your expertise to impact the IT strategy in a company that follows the science and turns ideas into life changing medicines? If so, AstraZeneca might be the one for you!

SKILLS AND CAPABILITIES:

Essential:

• Alignment with AZ Values and Behaviours
• Agile Enterprise mentality
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Self-starter who continuously develops new skills and proactively leads own career and development.
• Excellent influencing, networking, and collaborative working skills
• Able to lead difficult discussions, manage expectations and deliver solutions across complex partner groups.
• Ability to work well in and lead/collaborate across diverse matrixed global teams.
• Expertise in project delivery and change management and problem solving.
• Experienced sustainable relationship management skills with the ability to influence others to achieve objectives.

Desirable:

• Experience working in different countries/cultures.
• Experience working with and managing System Integration partners.
• Experience of defining and leading defect management processes.
• Experience of team leadership, line management, and matrix management environments.

ABOUT THE ROLE

Axial is a strategic multi-year business transformation program helping AstraZeneca achieve its 2030 Bold Ambition. Axial will deliver the new backbone for our innovation, growth, and performance, and the technology driving Axial is SAP S/4HANA and its Business Technology Platform.
The Axial Technology team actively partners with our business colleagues to deliver cutting-edge technology capabilities to fulfil AstraZeneca’s bold ambition of delivering life changing medicines to patients. Our ambition is to provide best-in-class expertise and leadership in technological solutions and Information Delivery that empowers our colleagues in the field and accelerates and improves strategic decision-making for a diverse range of partners. The team engages with some of the most exciting business areas within AstraZeneca and is faced with solving for a variety of complex business and IT challenges.
We are seeking for highly skilled and experienced Senior Project Manager and Team Leader to lead and manage projects within the Axial Technology workstream.

INTRODUCTION TO ROLE:

• Responsible for managing complex end to end projects and programmes with high degree of complexity.
• Ability to manage multiple projects in parallel. Collaborate with diverse teams across the globe within business domains like Operation, Finance, R&D, and Commercials.
• Manage, control, and report project budgets.
• Keep timelines and budgets in check, even in the face of monumental change.
• Effective risks & issues management and reporting
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management with a focus on clear concise reporting to very senior stakeholder within Business and Technology
• Adherence to all the validation and compliance documentation and methodologies
• Comfortable in Agile and waterfall methodologies
• Be part of the Technology PMO / PM leadership team and actively contribute to developing the Axial project management capability
• Manage and lead a team of project managers in Lisbon – represent the Technology PM team in Portugal

The role and core accountabilities:

• Agree and deliver plans for projects / programmes (or contribution to a section of a larger project), including activities, resources, costs, roles, responsibilities, and quality as defined in the IT Project Management Methodology.
• Manage project / programme budgets, forecasts, tasks, schedules, risks, organizational change, and status to support effective decisions and project reporting to collaborators and review boards. Coordinate status and delivery of project workstreams. Identify / manage dependencies between projects (intra-program and across portfolio).
• Work closely with global cross-functional teams to understand project requirements, provide regular updates, and ensure seamless communication throughout the project lifecycle.
• Manage and mitigate project risks, proactively identifying and addressing potential challenges.
• Communicate project progress, updates, and risks to stakeholders, including executives and team members.
• Foster a collaborative and positive team environment, promoting effective teamwork and knowledge sharing.
• Manage changes to project/programme scope, ensuring that all impacts and changes are approved and appropriately communicated to collaborators and review boards.
• Develop service transition plans including controlled hand-over into support and maintenance.
• Ensure the project team adheres to all standards including ADF, quality, and compliance, as well as processes, defined technical capabilities, and standard methodologies. Establish program governance and lead Decision Point reviews, member Steering Committee.
• Support continued development of a world-class centre of excellence for project management capabilities and ensure that standard methodology is adopted and reinforced.
• Team leader and line management of Portugal Technology PM team

Education, qualifications and experience:

Essential

• Strong Project and Programme Management Skills. Proven experience (typically 5-10 years) as a senior PM across the whole IT project lifecycle
• Relevant Technical or Business Degree
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills for effective collaboration with global teams and external partners.
• Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously, prioritising tasks and deadlines effectively.
• Knowledge of Financial Management within Projects and managing external suppliers
• Broad understanding of IT systems and technology implemented within a business context.
• Experience of working with modern IT tooling associated with large scale program delivery, for example JIRA and Automated Testing tools.
• Experience in a validated environment with operational awareness of GxP and SOX.
• Experience of leading SAP or similar ERP project delivery

Desirable

• Experience working with the core business areas of Operations and Enabling Units (Finance, Compliance and Legal).
• Experience in handling technology portfolios across multiple functional areas.
• Experience working in the Biopharmaceutical/Life Sciences industry (not essential).
• Project / Programme Management certifications.
• S/4HANA delivery experience.