Gulf IT Strategic Portfolio Director & PMO Lead

JOB TITLE

Gulf IT Strategic Portfolio Director & PMO Lead

ABOUT ASTRAZENECA

AstraZeneca is a global, science-led, patient-focused biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the discovery, development, and commercialisation of prescription medicines for some of the world’s most serious diseases. But we’re more than one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies.

ROLE SUMMARY

The Gulf Strategic Portfolio Director and PMO Lead drives the definition, prioritization, and execution of strategic digital and IT initiatives across the Gulf, serving as a key leader in positioning the market as a regional lighthouse for innovation. This role oversees the entire lifecycle of high-impact projects—from setup and resource mobilization to deployment and post-implementation review—ensuring alignment with business goals, adherence to governance standards, and delivery of measurable outcomes. By facilitating stakeholder engagement, fostering continuous improvement, and championing best practices across the region, the incumbent enables operational excellence and maximizes business value from the strategic portfolio.

What you’ll do

• Build trusted relationships with Gulf and regional stakeholders to shape and lead the local implementation of high-impact strategic digital and IT initiatives. Establish the Gulf as a lighthouse for MEA through exemplary execution, measurable outcomes, and scalable best practice
• Portfolio Roadmap and Prioritization: Build, own, and evolve the Gulf deployment roadmap, translating complex strategies into market-relevant plans. Drive prioritization based on business value, risk, capacity, and readiness; maintain a clear line of sight from strategy to benefits.
• End-to-End Program Delivery: Direct the full lifecycle of initiatives—from project setup and planning through analysis, development, testing, piloting, go-live, hypercare, and post-implementation review— ensuring high standards of delivery, effective problem solving, and measurable business outcomes.
• Governance and PMO Leadership: As the Lead for the strategic portfolio, defining standards and frameworks for governance, reporting cadence, risk/issue management, dependency mapping, and change control. Facilitate regular steering and review meetings to align stakeholders and enable effective decision-making.
• Quality, Compliance, and Risk: Review and sign off on key deliverables. Enforce adherence to governance frameworks, quality standards, cybersecurity requirements, and compliance policies (including data privacy and applicable local regulatory expectations).
• Stakeholder Engagement and Communication: Provide transparent communications on strategy, progress, risks, mitigations, and outcomes to senior leadership and cross-functional teams, drive alignment across functions
• Transition to Operations and Adoption: Develop and execute transition plans, ensuring business readiness, operational continuity, and sustainable ownership of solutions by business and IT operations. Drive user enablement, change management, and adoption for long-term value realization
• Benefits Realization and Continuous Improvement: Monitor utilization and adoption of strategic portfolio, identifying areas for improvement and proactively guiding business stakeholders to realize and maximize business benefits. Champion continuous improvement by challenging the status quo, exploring alternative solutions, and implementing best practices.
• Vendor and Partner Management: Coordinate external partners and vendors, ensuring contractual alignment, SLAs, delivery quality, and integration with internal teams and enterprise platforms.
• Standards and Reuse Across MEA: Act as PMO Lead for the strategic portfolio by fostering standardization, knowledge sharing, and reuse of assets, templates, and approaches across MEA markets—codifying lessons learned from Gulf deployments.

Essential for the role

• Bachelor’s degree from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields or a related field , MBA preferred
• Minimum 10 years of previous experience in multinational companies required. Experience in life sciences, healthcare, FMCG is advantageous, specifically in Commercial IT
• At least 5 years of experience in programme/project management, with a proven track record
• Strategic portfolio and PMO management experience; exposure to CRM, marketing, data and analytics, AI/ML automation (RPA/IPA), and cloud-based enterprise platforms and ability to connect capabilities to commercial outcomes.
• Deep expertise in program/project management, governance frameworks, benefits realization, and executive reporting. Strong command of agile and hybrid delivery methods; familiarity with product lifecycle management.
• Hands-on leadership of complex, multi-country deployments and change management initiatives.
• Strong, communication and relationship building skills with experience of collaborating and sharing knowledge between teams
• Evidence of shaping and developing innovative solutions that have a major impact within the business area and organisation
• Strong networking/consulting skills with good internal/external links
• Ability to interpret and communicate technical information into business language and in alignment with AZ business
• Strong influencing and communication skills to align cross-functional stakeholders and senior leaders. Ability to constructively challenge and drive decisions in complex, matrixed environments.
•  Experience of managing and controlling a budget
• Solid understanding of data privacy, cybersecurity, quality, and audit-readiness; experience working within governance and compliance frameworks

Desirable for the role

• Project Management qualification

Why AstraZeneca?

At AstraZeneca we’re dedicated to being a Great Place to Work. Where you are empowered to push the boundaries of science and unleash your entrepreneurial spirit. There’s no better place to make a difference to medicine, patients, and society. An inclusive culture that champions diversity and collaboration, and always committed to lifelong learning, growth, and development. We’re on an exciting journey to pioneer the future of healthcare.

So, what’s next?

• Are you already imagining yourself joining our team? Good, because we can’t wait to hear from you.
• Are you ready to bring new ideas and fresh thinking to the table? Brilliant! We have one seat available, and we hope it’s yours.

Where can I find out more?

Our Social Media, Follow AstraZeneca on LinkedIn

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Date Posted

Closing Date

AstraZeneca embraces diversity and equality of opportunity.  We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team representing all backgrounds, with as wide a range of perspectives as possible, and harnessing industry-leading skills.  We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be.  We welcome and consider applications to join our team from all qualified candidates, regardless of their characteristics.  We comply with all applicable laws and regulations on non-discrimination in employment (and recruitment), as well as work authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements.