Innovation Director

Role Description

At Thermo Fisher’s PPD clinical research business, we’re using digital innovation, data science, and AI to reimagine how life-changing therapies reach patients. Our teams combine deep scientific expertise with advanced analytics, automation, and digital platforms to make research smarter, faster, and more connected.

We know that innovation happens when diverse minds meet. Our Digital Science, Data, and AI professionals collaborate closely with scientists, clinicians, and operational experts to solve real-world challenges in clinical research. Alongside our partnership with Open AI, you can be part of the collaboration that will help to improve the speed and success of drug development, enabling customers to get medicines to patients faster and more cost effectively.

You’ll join a culture that values experimentation, learning, and collaboration — where your ideas can help shape how we deliver life-saving solutions and improve global health outcomes. Whether you’re a data engineer, product manager, software developer, or AI scientist, you’ll find opportunities here to apply your skills to work that truly matters — improving global health outcomes.

The Clinical Development Strategy and Innovation (CDSI) team is part of Thermo Fisher’s Clinical Research Group (CRG). This team leads and integrates strategy, operational excellence, and disruptive innovation to accelerate drug development for customers and patients. The innovation strategy team aims to uncover groundbreaking opportunities, rigorously validate concepts, and spearhead industry leadership to revolutionize drug development through transformative innovations.

The Innovation Director is responsible for driving innovation across a significant business landscape, concentration area, or horizontal capability, shaping and advancing a portfolio of high-impact opportunities aligned to strategic business priorities. This role provides senior leadership across innovation activities, ensuring opportunities are translated into clear value propositions, supported by robust evidence, and positioned to deliver meaningful operational, commercial, and customer impact.

Working closely with senior leaders across business, digital, data, technology, and operational teams, the Innovation Director guides the progression of opportunities from early exploration through validation and transition into implementation. The role acts as a primary senior interface between innovation and downstream execution teams, ensuring continuity of strategic intent and value realization while maintaining focus on opportunity shaping, experimentation, and investment decision support rather than delivery execution.

The role also plays a key part in shaping and communicating the organization’s innovation narrative, ensuring a clear and compelling representation of innovation priorities, progress, and impact across internal and external audiences.

This position combines strategic leadership, portfolio oversight, stakeholder influence, innovation expertise, and enterprise storytelling to strengthen innovation capability and accelerate transformational outcomes across the organization.

Responsibilities

• Own and oversee a portfolio of innovation opportunities, ensuring coherence, prioritization, and alignment to strategic and commercial objectives.
• Lead identification, shaping, prioritization, and progression of opportunities, ensuring sustained focus on the highest-value initiatives.
• Guide portfolio prioritization and investment trade-offs, balancing emerging opportunity development with scaling of validated concepts.
• Contribute to governance, portfolio reviews, and investment decision-making activities across the innovation landscape.
• Support and influence long-term strategic planning activities within the assigned remit, contributing to future innovation priorities and capability direction.
• Identify patterns, dependencies, risks, and emerging opportunities that inform broader portfolio and enterprise innovation decisions.
• Oversee the development and communication of the enterprise innovation story, ensuring a clear, consistent, and compelling narrative across internal stakeholders, clients, partners, and external industry audiences.
• Partner with commercial, strategy, and communications teams to position innovation capabilities, thought leadership, and strategic initiatives effectively in the market.
• Represent the organization internally and externally as a recognized innovation leader, contributing to strategic discussions, industry engagement, client interactions, and thought leadership activities.

Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in Business, Science, Technology, Engineering, or a related field. Advanced degree (MBA, MS) preferred.
• Previous experience leading innovation, transformation, strategy, product discovery, or technology-enabled business initiatives that provides the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform the job (comparable to 10+ years’ experience).
• Experience leading large-scale or enterprise-level portfolios, strategic initiatives, or cross-functional innovation programs.
• In some cases, an equivalency, consisting of appropriate education, training, and/or directly related experience will be considered sufficient for an individual to meet the requirements of the role.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Demonstrated success shaping and progressing high-impact innovation opportunities through structured discovery, validation, and transition activities.
• Experience influencing senior and executive stakeholders within matrixed organizations.
• Strong leadership experience across cross-functional business, digital, data, and technology environments.
• Experience representing innovation initiatives in senior governance forums, strategic planning discussions, or external industry settings.
• Deep understanding of innovation, experimentation, and evidence-based investment approaches.
• Strong commercial awareness and understanding of how innovation supports growth, differentiation, and competitive positioning.
• Strong communication and storytelling capabilities, including the ability to position innovation strategies, opportunities, and outcomes for executive, client, and external audiences.
• Ability to balance long-term strategic thinking with practical portfolio prioritization and progression.
• Strong analytical, decision-making, and problem-solving capabilities.
• Understanding of emerging technologies, digital transformation, and innovation trends relevant to clinical research and healthcare.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to engage effectively across global and cross-functional teams.

Requirements

• Able to communicate, receive, and understand information and ideas with diverse groups of people in a comprehensible and reasonable manner.
• Able to work upright and stationary for typical working hours.
• Ability to use and learn standard office equipment and technology with proficiency.
• Able to perform successfully under pressure while prioritizing and handling multiple projects or activities.
• May require as-needed travel (0-20%) domestic and international.
• Location: Remote US. Relocation assistance is NOT provided.
• Must be legally authorized to work in your country of residence without sponsorship.