Senior Director, Health Equity

Introduction to role:

We are seeking an enthusiastic and dynamic Senior Director of Health Equity (HE) to lead the development and implementation of AstraZeneca’s HE Strategy across regions in line with our strategic objectives and disease area priorities.

In this key leadership role, you will be working with internal and external stakeholders to reduce healthcare disparities and improve health outcomes for all. The ideal candidate will possess a strong background in public health, government affairs, healthcare policy, and strategic programme management, with a passion for advancing health equity within the pharmaceutical industry.

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategic Leadership: Lead the roll out of the global HE strategy across science, healthcare delivery and community engagement, and drive impactful execution of it at regional and country levels, ensuring alignment with broader business goals and initiatives.

• Flagship Programme Management (30% of time): Lead AZ’s flagship health equity programme Healthy Heart Africa including partnership development, evidence generation, policy and communications strategy to elevate AZ leadership. Support delivery of regional and country initiatives such as Cancer Care Africa aimed at reducing healthcare disparities in line with global HE strategy.

• Cross-functional Collaboration: Collaborate with internal teams, including Medical, Commercial, Market Access and R&D to integrate health equity strategy into the business must wins and operations including clinical trials, unlock access to diagnosis and treatment for underserved groups and support market access strategies.

• Stakeholder Engagement: Build and nurture relationships with policymakers, healthcare providers, community organisations, and advocacy groups to drive regional and country health equity efforts and impact.

• Data & Impact Analysis: Oversee the collection and analysis of data related to health disparities aligned with disease area and policy shaping priorities, and help countries to identify relevant underserved groups, ensuring that actionable insights are derived to maximise impact, inform programme development and resource allocation. Ensure health equity metrics are embedded into evidence generation programmes to support identification of underserved groups across priority disease areas. Drive efforts to measure and communicate impact of health equity programmes consistently across the region and countries.

• Compliance & Advocacy: Ensure all health equity programs operations comply with local laws and company’s regulations and policies while advocating for policies that promote improved access to screening, early detection, diagnosis and healthcare.

• Education, awareness & communications: Lead efforts to educate internal teams and stakeholders on health equity issues, including social determinants of health. Drive external thought leadership on health equity, and support strategic communications in line with AstraZeneca’s Sustainability Strategy.

• Team Management: manage the Healthy Heart Africa programme team, fostering a culture of high performance, inclusion, diversity, and empowerment within the organisation.

Qualifications:

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in relevant field is required.

• Master’s degree in public health, healthcare administration or economics is preferred.

• Experience:

  • Proven experience in the pharmaceutical or healthcare sector; with a focus on reducing health disparities, improving access to care, government engagement and/or health policies.

• Deep understanding of healthcare systems, how to drive healthcare policy change at country level and experience of successful projects realised across diverse markets.

• Experience in international markets is preferred.

• Skills & Competencies:

  • Strong strategic thinking and problem-solving skills with the ability to translate vision into actionable initiatives.

  • Passion for advancing health equity and a deep commitment to reducing healthcare disparities.

  • Excellent communication, interpersonal, and presentation skills, with the ability to engage stakeholders at all levels.

  • Self-starting, independent, entrepreneurial attitude – a smart risk-taker who thrives on new challenges and on seeing things through to completion.

  • Ability to analyse complex data and use insights to inform decision-making and programme development.

  • Eagerness and ability to collaborate with and mobilise different people and organisations; work effectively in a matrix organisation and ability to prioritise effectively.