Portfolio and Platform Lead, Accelerator

The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve. We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities. As a workplace, we’re committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The Team

Our Global Health (GH) program harnesses advances in science and technology to save lives in low and middle income countries. We focus on the health problems that have a major impact in developing countries but get too little attention and funding. Where proven tools exist, we support sustainable ways to improve their delivery. Where they don’t, we invest in research and development of new interventions, such as vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics. Our work in infectious diseases focuses on strategies to fight and prevent HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, neglected and other infectious diseases, enteric and diarrheal diseases and pneumonia. These strategies are supported by functional teams that focus on Discovery and Translational Sciences, Vaccine Development, and Integrated Development.

The Accelerator funds the creation of novel technology capabilities that enable the achievement of the foundation’s mission by fostering the conception, design, and testing of fundamentally new biotech platforms that have the potential to change current best practices or business models and show proof of concept for these platforms. By leveraging grants, equity, and donor capital, we work to ensure the capabilities advanced further the foundation’s objectives and support the transition of these new technology platforms to execution partners. Some platform capabilities that we are exploring include harnessing the power of chemo-sensing for ultra-high sensitivity detection of volatiles, programming immune system responses for design of next generation vaccine modalities, and engineering antibodies for oral delivery. We will be exploring exciting new transformative technology capabilities beyond these within our broad mandate. Our team also includes more mature programmatic units aiming to achieve a “single-shot cure” for HIV and sickle cell disease in the next ten years, harness AI and machine learning tools to radically advance drug discovery and development to cure HPV and pre-eclampsia, and develop five new preclinical oral polio vaccine candidates in the next two years.

Your Role

We are currently seeking a Portfolio and Platform Lead (PPL) for the Accelerator team within the Global Health Division. The candidate will help put together and apply integrated product development plans, as well as bring deep platform implementation and management experience to the Accelerator portfolio. The PPL will apply relevant technical and execution expertise to best suit the complex ecosystem in which Global Health works with various partners (academic institutions, biotechs, PDPs, Pharma). The candidate will work with the Accelerator team and its partners to ensure that: (a) the portfolio of investments related to product development have robust implementation plans that ultimately result in effective, impactful, deliverable interventions; and (b) the portfolio of investments in cross-cutting platforms have robust development, implementation and tracking plans that facilitate the de-risking, advancement and/or termination of product/intervention concepts and candidates in a rational, expedited manner. The PPL will leverage subject matter and execution expertise relevant to drugs, vaccines, biologics, and novel technological platforms, and apply rigorous methodology to assist the Accelerator in assessing, managing, and continuously refining the portfolios to achieve optimal global health impact through our partners and grantees. The Accelerator works predominantly in preclinical innovation for fundamentally new modalities, requiring expertise and comfort in development of novel clinical products.

What You’ll Do

• Develop long term portfolio execution plans aligned with the high-level strategies of the Accelerator team.
• Work collaboratively with BMGF Program Strategy and Functional teams to develop and execute product development plans and/or the development and management of enabling platforms, with foundation partners and grantees.
• Identify and assess key risks at the portfolio level; develop and manage mitigation/ contingency plans.
• Proactively identify areas of misalignment and lead the process of developing plans to ‘get back on track’ and refine the portfolio execution plans.
• Work with BMGF Program Strategy and Functional teams to identify potential new cross-cutting areas for platform development with partners and grantees.
• Manage or oversee Functional team platform strategy and execution.
• Monitor the development of promising novel technologies with product or platform potential.
• Develop and encourage use of standard approaches, tools and methodologies for portfolio management across teams to enable effective decision making.
• Proactively work with peers/ fellow PPLs to ensure a consistent approach as well as application of appropriate rigor to portfolio management across the Global Health Program.
• Communicate information related to the portfolio dynamics that will support strategy development and effectively communicate the state of the Accelerator portfolio and platforms to foundation leadership.
• Effectively and proactively manage relationships with key internal stakeholders within the matrixed organization.
• Support efforts to ensure the team represents foundation's core values of collaboration, rigor, optimism, and innovation.

Your Experience

• Minimum 10 years of professional experience in the biotech/pharmaceutical professional experience in the biotech/pharmaceutical and/or life sciences research sectors at a senior level.
• Significant experience project managing R&D efforts at the product and portfolio levels in vaccines and/or biologics is required. While discovery and development experience is required, familiarity with the needs of commercial and/or delivery teams is recommended.
• PhD and/or MD (preferred) in one of the life sciences, or relevant experience/advanced degree.
• Integrated product development project management (methodology, metrics, best practices).
• Portfolio/platform management (in pharma/biotech context) and associated tools.
• Project management, implementation planning and associated tools.
• Risk assessment and management (mitigation and contingency plans).

Other Attributes

• Broad working knowledge and/or specific knowledge of several elements of product and/or service development and launch (e.g., discovery, development, commercial launch).
• Strong oral and written communications.
• Strong meeting and relationship facilitation.
• Facility working within a highly matrixed organization.

The salary range for this role is $186,400 to $288,800 USD. We recognize high-wage market differences in Seattle and Washington D.C., where our offices are located. The range for this role in these locations is $203,100 to $314,900 USD. As a mission-driven organization, we strive to balance competitive pay with our mission. New hires salaries are typically between the range minimum and the salary range midpoint. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidate’s job-related skills, experience, and expertise, as evaluated during the interview process.

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Hiring Requirements

As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

Candidate Accommodations

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Inclusion Statement

We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We strive for a global and cultural workplace that supports ever greater diversity, equity, and inclusion — of voices, ideas, and approaches — and we support this diversity through all our employment practices.

All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.