Senior Director, Applied AI, Design & Innovation

At Gilead were creating a healthier world for all people. For more than 35 years weve tackled diseases such as HIV viral hepatitis COVID-19 and cancer working relentlessly to develop therapies that help improve lives and to ensure access to these therapies across the globe. We continue to fight against the worlds biggest health challenges and our mission requires collaboration determination and a relentless drive to make a difference.

Every member of Gileads team plays a critical role in the discovery and development of life-changing scientific innovations. Our employees are our greatest asset as we work to achieve our bold ambitions and were looking for the next wave of passionate and ambitious people ready to make a direct impact.

We believe every employee deserves a great leader. People Leaders are the cornerstone to the employee experience at Gilead and Kite. As a people leader now or in the future you are the key driver in evolving our culture and creating an environment where every employee feels included developed and empowered to fulfil their aspirations. Join Gilead and help create possible together.

Job Description

Global Development Clinical Operations

This position is located in Foster City California (Hybrid) Parsippany NJ or US-Remote and may require domestic or international travel as required (valid travel documents must be obtainable).

Position Overview

Design & Innovation is responsible for advancing the clinical trial experience through evidence-based decision-making human-centered design advanced analytics digital capability development and AI-enabled innovation. These approaches transform how programs and studies are designed planned and operationalized. The function supports patient-centric clinical trial design that provide enable more efficient execution through lean designs and less burden for patients and sites. The team has developed an industry leading set of capabilities that enable the organization to reliably predict the enrollment of the portfolio with a high degree of accuracy through modern statistical approaches and we are developing the next generation platform to further enable even greater efficiency in the design and planning process capabilities.

The Sr. Director Applied AI will be responsible for leading the cross-functional design delivery team and is ultimately accountable for the overall operational strategy and study/site feasibility processes systems and people that support the entire portfolio across our three therapeutic areas of Virology Oncology and Inflammation. This role is also responsible for project leadership of Development level AI initiatives that aim to continue the development of our AI capabilities within the Design & Innovation scope and beyond to also include priority deliverables for Clinical Operations. This leader will report to and partner closely with the Executive Director to shape strategy operating frameworks and delivery models across a portfolio of initiatives within defined budgets and timelines. The role will lead the identification development integration scaling and value realization of innovative processes technologies data assets and AI-enabled capabilities within Gileads clinical development model.

This leader will serve as a strategic integrator across Clinical Operations Clinical Development Clinical Data Science Regulatory Medical Affairs Commercial and IT translating complex operational and clinical needs into coherent realistic and trackable innovation and AI strategies. The Sr. Director will help shape how innovation and AI capabilities are prioritized governed adopted and scaled across Clinical Operations with a focus on measurable business operational quality and patient impact.

• Define and own the multi-year Applied AI roadmap for Clinical Development & Operations aligned to Gileads enterprise AI strategy and portfolio priorities.
• Build scale and lead a center-of-excellence team spanning data science ML engineering GenAI product development and AI delivery management.
• Establish governance prioritization frameworks KPIs and ROI/value-realization models that quantify AIs impact at the trial program and portfolio level.
• Serve as the executive voice of Applied AI to Senior Leadership R&D governance forums and external partners.

• Lead development of predictive enrollment models that improve forecasting accuracy at the country site and study level.
• Build real-time enrollment performance monitoring capabilities to enable earlier more proactive interventions.
• Partner with Clinical Operations and Program Management to integrate forecasting outputs into operational planning resource demand and budget cycles.

• Drive AI/ML-enabled approaches to protocol design optimization including eligibility criteria simulation endpoint selection and protocol complexity scoring.
• Develop site selection and feasibility models leveraging internal data external RWD/RWE and historical performance signals.
• Partner with Biostatistics and Clinical Development teams to embed AI insights into protocol authoring design tollgates and study start-up decisions.
• Establish refine and drive a multi-year AI Innovation strategy aligned to Development and Clinical Operations priorities operating model evolution and enterprise AI direction.
• Lead functional deliverables across Design & Innovation design delivery early and late-stage innovation capability development by providing overall operational excellence.
• Lead the Clinical Intelligence team to support a variety of strategic queries and operational benchmarking for the executive Clinical Operations and Development leadership teams.
• Shape and manage a portfolio of innovation and AI initiatives aligned to Clinical Operations strategy business priorities and value realization goals.
• Identify prioritize and advance high-value innovation and AI use cases that improve clinical program and study design operational planning decision support workflow efficiency and stakeholder insight generation.

• Champion integration of RWD/RWE into trial design feasibility and patient identification workflows.
• Build partnerships with external data platforms and evaluate AI start-ups/vendors to access cutting-edge methodologies.
• Recommend strategic partnerships in-licensing or build-vs-buy decisions to accelerate capability development.

• Partner with Clinical Operations Clinical Data Sciences Biostatistics Safety Regulatory and Digital to ensure AI solutions are designed for adoption not just deployment.
• Lead change management training and enablement to drive scaled adoption across study teams.
• Represent Gilead externally with industry consortia regulators (e.g. FDA) and strategic partners on Applied AI in clinical research.

• Translate clinical and operational needs into actionable innovation and AI strategies delivery plans business cases and measurable outcomes.
• Partner with Clinical Development Clinical Operations Clinical Data Science (AI Research Center Clinical & Development Systems Biostatistics) Regulatory Portfolio Strategy & Analytics Medical Affairs IT Digital and other stakeholders to translate innovation priorities into scalable capabilities and operating improvements.
• Support governance and decision-making processes by preparing strategic recommendations facilitating prioritization discussions and communicating proposals trade-offs and decision options to senior stakeholder audiences.
• Lead the development and governance of frameworks for identifying testing validating integrating scaling and monitoring new capabilities across process technology data analytics and AI.
• Define develop and track KPIs value measures and ROI frameworks to quantify the impact of innovation and AI capabilities at the study program and functional levels.
• Establish governance standards for business cases value tracking adoption measures scale-up criteria and stop pivot or expand decisions across the innovation portfolio.
• Help define fit-for-purpose operating data and platform requirements needed to support priority innovation and AI use cases across clinical development and operations.
• Partner with Digital IT data science and enterprise technology teams to support scalable architecture integration and deployment approaches for new capabilities.
• Drive responsible implementation of AI-enabled capabilities with appropriate rigor around business value adoption usability privacy transparency bias and risk management compliance and human-in-the-loop oversight.
• Shape and operationalize an innovation portfolio that balances near-term business impact with longer-term capability building.
• Strategically identify emerging external capabilities across start-ups mid-sized organizations and enterprise partners to accelerate innovation and create meaningful gains in speed quality and value.
• Serve as a functional leader and liaison to key Development areas aligning enterprise needs with practical capability development and deployment.
• Act as an integrator across business technology and data teams to ensure alignment visibility accountability and successful scale-up of priority capabilities.
• Inform and influence corporate and regulatory policies and external guidance related to clinical development innovation including patient-centricity diversity accessibility decentralization digital health real-world evidence and responsible use of AI.
• Lead and support the creation of governance documents procedural documentation white papers abstracts presentations manuscripts and other thought leadership materials.
• Promote awareness adoption and change management for innovation- and AI-enabled processes across the organization through playbooks communications training and ongoing engagement.
• Build organizational capability in innovation digital and AI-enabled ways of working by helping teams adopt new tools practices and decision models at scale.
• Provide functional financial oversight including latest estimates resource planning and communication across clinical and finance stakeholders.
• Lead recruitment development and performance management for a team of full-time employees contractors and external partners.

• Experience leading strategic and complex scientific operational and analytical initiatives that support program and study design including but not limited to the execution of Bayesian inference models including Poisson-gamma predictive enrollment scenario modeling real-time enrollment performance monitoring
• Demonstrated experience shaping and advancing AI analytics digital or business transformation initiatives in a regulated environment
• Strong understanding of how to evaluate AI and advanced analytics use cases for business impact feasibility scalability adoption and operational fit
• Experience translating business clinical and operational needs into scalable technology analytics or AI-enabled solutions
• Experience defining KPI value and ROI frameworks for innovation digital or AI initiatives
• Experience leading or supporting portfolio governance prioritization and value realization for complex cross-functional initiatives
• Experience supporting adoption of digital or AI-enabled capabilities through change management stakeholder engagement and scalable operating models
• Understanding of data platform and integration considerations required to deploy digital and AI-enabled capabilities in a complex enterprise environment
• High degree of customer focus and collaboration in a cross-functional team environment
• Demonstrated planning organizational and large-scale budget management skills
• Inspirational leadership style with the ability to attract talent build high-performing teams and influence across a complex matrix
• Strong interpersonal skills including the ability to lead coach and mentor staff and align multifunctional teams around informed risk-taking and data-driven decision-making
• Advanced capabilities in change management and business transformation
• Experience leading high-complexity cross-functional initiatives in life sciences including strategic planning governance team management and organizational alignment
• Demonstrated ability to solve complex problems requiring strong judgment related to domestic and global regulations guidelines investigator interactions and timelines
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills including experience presenting scientific operational and strategic concepts to executive audiences
• Experience applying GDPR HIPAA information security privacy and vendor assessment requirements in the evaluation and implementation of new capabilities and technologies

• Bachelors degree with 14 years of relevant scientific discipline such as Life Sciences Information Technology Computer Science Pharmacy Data Science Business or related field OR 12 years of relevant experience with an advanced degree or higher in Life Sciences Information Technology Computer Science Medicine Pharmacy Data Science Sociology Public Health Industrial Design Marketing Business or related field.
• Extensive working knowledge of drug development and global clinical trial conduct including recent advances in data science digital solutions regulatory science and AI-enabled technologies.
• Prior experience leading organizational transformation and designing or executing large global programs and studies in program or clinical project management/clinical operations.
• Extensive line management experience which may include managing other people leaders and a strong track record of hiring managing and developing diverse top talent.
• Experience leading AI initiatives across multiple therapeutic areas (Oncology Virology Inflammation a plus)Familiarity with MLOps CI/CD and AI Platform Architecture in Regulated (GxP) environmentsPrior engagement with FDA EMA or industry consortia (e.g. TransCelerate PhRMA CDISC) on AI/digital innovation/clinical innovation.
• Experience with agentic AI architectures retrieval-augmented generation and human-in-the-loop design patterns.
• Track record of published thought leadership or external speaking on AI in clinical research.

Strategic clarity you can translate ambiguous scientific and operational needs into a prioritized measurable AI roadmap and support a team of strategic thinkers for enabling critical portfolio decision making and planning

Builders mindset youve stood up teams capabilities and platforms from scratch and scaled them

Bias for outcomes you measure success in trial acceleration cost reduction and adoption not models shipped

Collaborative leadership you build trust with clinical scientific technical and regulatory partners alike

Patient focus you understand that every day saved on a trial timeline is a day earlier patients access therapies

A 12-month reduction in clinical development timelines can deliver hundreds of millions of dollars in net present value across a sponsors portfolio and immeasurable benefit to patients waiting for therapies.

This role is Gileads opportunity to set the pace for the industry: combining classical AI/ML and Generative AI with new ways of working to make our trials patient-centered intelligent and lean making them reliably fast for our stakeholders.

The salary range for this position is:

Gilead considers a variety of factors when determining base compensation including experience qualifications and geographic location. These considerations mean actual compensation will vary. This position may also be eligible for a discretionary annual bonus discretionary stock-based long-term incentives (eligibility may vary based on role) paid time off and a benefits package. Benefits include company-sponsored medical dental vision and life insurance plans*.

For additional benefits information visit:

Eligible employees may participate in benefit plans subject to the terms and conditions of the applicable plans.

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