Job Description Summary

The Operations Lead is accountable for leading a defined segment of the in-house and commercial application portfolio and ensuring that the segment delivers reliable, compliant, scalable, and value-driven operational services. The role sets segment priorities, drives operational governance, strengthens adoption and continuous improvement, and provides leadership to Operations Managers and managed service partners. The Operations Lead serves as the primary leadership interface between Operations, Innovation & Delivery Leads, business and scientific stakeholders, and technology partners to enable effective lifecycle management across the segment.

 

Job Description

Accountabilities

1. Segment Leadership & Strategy

·    Define segment priorities, operational objectives, success measures, and improvement themes aligned with the overall Operations strategy.

·    Drive service maturity, standardization, lifecycle governance, and operational excellence across the application segment.

·    Provide segment-level input to portfolio planning, prioritization, capacity planning, lifecycle decisions, and operational investment discussions.

·    Represent the segment in governance, planning, portfolio, and operational review forums, ensuring clear decisions, ownership, and follow-through.

2. Operational Governance

·    Own the overall view of service health, operational performance, risk posture, compliance readiness, and adoption outcomes across the segment.

·    Review operational KPIs, SLA performance, support trends, recurring issues, operational risks, and user adoption insights to guide timely decisions.

·    Sponsor cross-application improvement initiatives, automation opportunities, standardization efforts, and recurring-issue reduction programs.

·    Ensure fit-for-purpose support models, accountability structures, escalation paths, documentation standards, and lifecycle processes are established and sustained across the segment.

·    Ensure material operational insights, dependencies, risks, and improvement opportunities are reflected in application roadmaps and lifecycle plans.

3.Delivery Team Partnership

·    Partner with Delivery Leads so that operational requirements, user adoption needs, supportability, compliance, and transition considerations are built into initiatives from the outset.

·    Govern transition-to-operations activities across the segment, including operational readiness, knowledge transfer, support onboarding, documentation, acceptance criteria, and managed service enablement.

·    Confirm that new or changed capabilities are supportable, operationally ready, and positioned for successful adoption before production deployment.

·    Provide an operational leadership perspective to solution decisions, release planning, rollout approaches, and post-implementation stabilization.

4. Stakeholder Leadership

·    Serve as the primary operational leader for the application segment across business, scientific, delivery, technology, and partner stakeholders.

·    Communicate operational performance, risks, service improvements, adoption trends, dependencies, and strategic priorities with clarity and appropriate escalation.

·    Build trusted stakeholder relationships and maintain alignment between evolving business needs, scientific priorities, and operational capabilities.

·    Facilitate decisions on service priorities, trade-offs, ownership, and remediation where multiple applications or stakeholder groups are affected.

5. People Leadership

·    Lead, coach, and develop Operations Managers across the segment, providing clear direction and enabling effective execution.

·    Establish priorities, performance expectations, decision rights, and consistent operational standards for the team.

·    Build application-domain expertise, service-management capability, stakeholder leadership, and future leadership readiness within the team.

·    Promote a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous learning, proactive risk management, and measurable improvement.

6. Managed Services & Vendor Governance

·    Provide strategic oversight of managed service partners and vendors supporting the segment.

·    Review service quality, delivery effectiveness, operational outcomes, user-support effectiveness, and partner performance against agreed expectations.

·    Ensure clear accountability, priorities, governance routines, escalation mechanisms, and improvement commitments are maintained with partners.

·    Drive continuous improvement in support models, operational processes, automation, knowledge management, and vendor engagement practices.

·    Support effective resource, cost, license, and contract governance in partnership with relevant commercial and procurement stakeholders.

7. Compliance & Risk Management

·    Oversee major operational risks, compliance actions, audit-readiness topics, vulnerability trends, and remediation plans across the segment.

·    Ensure effective governance of operational controls, evidence requirements, security and quality obligations, and remediation commitments.

·    Escalate material risks and control gaps, establish accountable remediation ownership, and monitor progress through closure.

·    Promote risk-based decision making and ensure resilience, business continuity, and recoverability considerations are addressed across the segment.

Experience Requirements

·    Significant experience in application operations, IT service management, product operations, or software delivery within a complex, global business environment.

·    Demonstrated experience leading a portfolio, service segment, or multi-application operational scope with accountability for service outcomes, risks, and stakeholders.

·    Experience leading and developing managers or senior operational professionals, including setting priorities and performance expectations.

·    Strong knowledge of IT service management practices, including incident, problem, change, release, service-level, and continual-improvement management.

·    Experience governing managed services, external vendors, or strategic delivery partners.

·    Working knowledge of security, compliance, audit readiness, vulnerability management, operational resilience, and lifecycle governance.

·    Ability to interpret operational metrics and trends, translate them into decisions, and communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders.

·    Experience in drug discovery, scientific research, healthcare, or life sciences is preferred.

Education & Qualification Requirements

·    Bachelor's or master's degree in technology, engineering, computer science, life sciences, business, or a related discipline.

·    Typically 10+ years of relevant experience in software delivery, application operations, product operations, or service management, including leadership responsibility in a complex environment.

·    Relevant service management, cloud, security, project, product, or leadership certifications are advantageous.

 

Skills Desired

Algorithms, Computer Programming, Computer Science, Computer Vision, Data Science, People Management, Waterfall Model