The Sr. Director, AI & Data is responsible for directly overseeing and organizing wide-reaching Pfizer initiatives through digital-wide initiatives, or via horizontal platforms and products. As an individual contributor, your primary impact is through your direct work. As a people manager, you are responsible for leading and directing your team to accomplish wide-reaching strategic goals. You are a widely recognized expert in your technical domain able to articulate clearly to a deep technical level and you are equally comfortable with forming business objectives and producing clear business-facing outcomes.

This role reports to the VP of Enterprise Architecture which is responsible for the enterprise-wide architecture.
 

Key accountabilities:

• Lead a team of architects responsible for supporting business strategies and priorities across all domains in Pfizer involving AI & Data Enterprise Architecture.

• Deliver Enterprise Architecture Outcomes including creation of detailed Solution Sketches, City Plans, and Solution Architecture Diagrams as necessary.

• Lead multifaceted, unique, and long-term initiatives with high strategic value, directing colleagues and contractors to produce Enterprise guidance and roadmaps across multiple business lines and global organizations.

• Influence and direct a cross- functional team from creation centers, business architects and technical SME’s towards a common technical vision.

• Advise Senior leadership on emerging technology landscape externally and internally and enable adoption to minimize total cost of ownership and an optimized application portfolio. 

• Lead initiatives to bring new technology into Pfizer including the contracting process, co-leading RFIs and RFP responses, and producing a technical fit assessment of each vendor.

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

• Domain Expertise – Data & AI:

• Establish and enforce enterprise-wide AI standards, governance frameworks, and guardrails to ensure responsible, ethical, and compliant development and deployment of AI solutions across the organization.

• Design and architect a centralized AI platform that supports scalable model development, deployment, monitoring, and lifecycle management for commercial, clinical, and operational use cases.

• Lead the integration of AI/ML solutions into business workflows, ensuring alignment with standardized processes, regulatory requirements, and enterprise architecture principles.

• Develop and maintain architecture roadmaps for data and AI capabilities, aligning technology investments with evolving business models and strategic priorities.

• Drive the adoption of cloud-based data and AI platforms, enabling secure, compliant, and interoperable data pipelines and analytics across business units.

• Establish and oversee data governance frameworks—including master data management, data lineage, and metadata standards—to support high-quality, compliant data for AI and analytics.

• Lead the evaluation and implementation of emerging AI technologies (e.g., generative AI, federated learning, synthetic data) to accelerate digital transformation and maintain competitive advantage.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to embed AI-driven decision support into commercial, clinical, and operational workflows, enhancing business agility and innovation.

• Mentor and guide data engineers, data scientists, and business analysts, fostering a culture of innovation, continuous learning, and best practices in data and AI architecture.

• Service Delivery:

• Dedicated to meeting the expectations and requirements of internal and external customers; gets first-hand customer information and uses it for improvements in products and services; acts with customers in mind; establishes and maintains effective relationships with customers and gains their trust and respect.

• Understands customers’ operational needs and leads strategic direction in both technical and business context.

• Translate complex business requirements into actionable plans while getting to the root of those requirements and completely understanding the space which you’ll be operating under. You will be responsible for both understanding the business context and providing alternatives to the business plan in addition to translating those to technical blueprints.

• Anticipates internal/external business and GCP compliance issues before they arise, and engage the proper colleagues in the organization to fully document the landscape and provide mitigation strategy and business continuity.

• Strategy & Planning:

• Uses innovative business thinking to challenge the status quo and drive identification, quantification, and proposal of business solutions.

• Creates and Leads Enterprise Architecture Initiatives to stay ahead of the technological curve – identifying technologies and solutions before they are implemented.

• Creates actionable plans at the enterprise level to simplify technology systems at every level of the ecosystem.

• Architecture

• Understand and develop business drivers and business capabilities (future and current state) and determine corresponding enterprise system designs and change requirements to drive business outcomes.

• Accountable for the formulation of solution implementation approach, building consensus on approach, and providing technical execution oversight of such solutions.

• Knowledgeable about the many different constraints in the healthcare industry. Can educate others on these constraints and provide expert guidance.

• Understands modern cloud architecture best practices and is well-versed in Amazon Web Services-based and Azure  architecture.

• Accountable for maintaining technology profiles, influencing, and enforcing technology standards across the enterprise for the best outcome for all of the organization.

• Communication:

• Is recognized internally and externally as a thought leader and applies this to influence the strategic direction of a Global Business Unit/Global Operating Unit or Division

• Develops and sustains constructive partnerships between business and technical stakeholders to ensure success of programs and products, over the lifecycle of those initiatives. Is a primary decision maker for technical fit.

• Adept at stakeholder management, with the ability to build and maintain strong relationships across all levels of the organization

• Ensures effective, accurate and timely communication across the portfolio; prepares and delivers regular updates on project status, both in written and presentation format, to sponsors, business leaders and stakeholder groups.

• Innovation and Risk Taking

• Creates an environment where innovation is standard, taking appropriate risks to advance innovative processes.

• Is knowledgeable about technical and business constraints to produce the best solution.

• Works with other stakeholders to remove roadblocks while ensuring compliance controls are met.

• Financial Management:

• Effectively manages team budget resources in alignment with product / program needs.

• Understands the funding model and is actively engaged in financial planning for projects and products.

• Co-develops business plans for strategic initiatives and for EA organized efforts.

• Matrixed Team Effectiveness:

• Is highly skilled in a variety of formal presentation settings; one-on-one, small and large groups, with peers, and senior management; is effective both inside and outside the organization; commands attention and can manage group process during the presentation; can change tactics midstream when something isn't working.

• Utilizes negotiation, facilitation, meeting management and conflict resolution skills to enhance cross-functional team performance.

• Arbitrates disagreements among solution stakeholders and makes business decisions/proposals where needed.

• Understands and communicates team roles/responsibilities and ensures all team members have access to project information necessary to be successful.

• Solicits and evaluates vendor proposals to augment internal expertise in service delivery.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s Degree / Master’s degree from accredited institution

• 12+ years of experience in AI & Data Technology.

• Deep Technical Knowledge of AI & Data programs, technical designs & patterns in a High Tech and/or Pharma domain.

• Strong interpersonal and Leadership skills where you are not a direct manager

• Strong diplomacy skills; able to navigate a difficult political environment.

• An “execution mindset” focused on getting things done quickly and simply.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 10+ years of experience in AI & Data with proven track record of delivering digital projects

• 5+ years of experience working with systems that ensure  Pharma processes that fully comply with Industry regulations and quality standards (FDA, GxP).

• 5+ years of experience leading the design and architecture of AI & Data solutions to optimize performance across procurement, manufacturing, logistics, and planning.

• Experience with data driven insights to inform decision making and AI-driven technology programs.

 
Candidate demonstrates a breadth of diverse leadership experiences and capabilities including: the ability to influence and collaborate with peers, develop and coach others, oversee and guide the work of other colleagues to achieve meaningful outcomes and create business impact.

NON-STANDARD WORK SCHEDULE, TRAVEL OR ENVIRONMENT REQUIREMENTS

Pfizer Digital is a 7x24x365 global endeavor.  This role may require physical or virtual participation on a weekend, holiday, or after normal business hours.