Associate Director, Medical Grants and Sponsorship

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Job Description

OBJECTIVES / PURPOSE

• Provides enterprise-level governance, portfolio and operational leadership for medical grants, medical education grants and sponsorships within Global Medical.
• Ensures that funding decisions are transparent, objective, well documented, aligned with enterprise Medical priorities, Therapeutic Area strategies, unmet scientific or educational need, patient-centric outcomes, and compliant with Takeda standards and applicable industry requirements.
• Establishes and maintains clear funding frameworks, decision criteria, review pathways, committee operations, documentation expectations, budget visibility, system/repository requirements and lifecycle oversight from intake through close-out. The role partners with Global Therapeutic Areas, regions, LOC Medical, Ethics & Compliance, Legal and Finance to define areas of scientific and educational interest, prioritize funding and enable consistent decision-making across geographies.
• Chairs and/or facilitates Global Grant Review Committee discussions, supports objective, fair and balanced decision-making, and helps evolve a globally harmonized grants and sponsorships model.

ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Establish, maintain and evolve enterprise governance standards for medical grants, medical education grants and sponsorships to ensure consistent quality, transparency, accountability, appropriate oversight and compliance across global markets.
• Translate enterprise Medical and Therapeutic Area priorities into practical funding frameworks, including defined areas of scientific and educational interest, unmet need statements, prioritization criteria and funding guardrails.
• Shape and maintain the global areas of scientific and educational interest for grants and sponsorships in partnership with Global Therapeutic Areas and Medical leadership, ensuring that external funding priorities are clearly linked to unmet need, Medical strategy, disease-area priorities, patient-centric outcomes and independence requirements.
• Drive portfolio-level prioritization across Therapeutic Areas, geographies, proactive funding opportunities, calls for grants, strategic initiatives, and reactive/unsolicited requests, balancing Medical priorities, unmet need, patient/public health impact, budget availability, fairness of review, and independence requirements.
• Define and continuously refine decision criteria, review pathways, governance standards and decision rights so that funding decisions are anchored in unmet need, patient-centric outcomes, scientific merit, transparency, and compliance.
• Chair and/or facilitate Grant Review Committee meetings, including agenda setting, pre-read review, request summaries, structured discussion, conflict-of-interest considerations, voting integrity, decision documentation and follow-up actions.
• Ensure appropriate cross-functional representation and input from Medical, Global Therapeutic Areas, Ethics & Compliance, Legal, Finance, regional and local Medical teams where relevant to the nature of the request.
• Oversee lifecycle governance for external funding requests from intake and eligibility review through committee decision, agreement handoff, milestone and payment visibility, reconciliation tracking, outcomes reporting, close-out and archiving.
• Assess grant and sponsorship requests against consistent criteria, including requester eligibility, needs assessment, scientific or educational objectives, provider qualifications, program design, audience, budget, deliverables, outcomes plan, disclosure needs and potential risk indicators.
• Maintain governance visibility through grant-management systems, repositories, documentation standards, status tracking, budget commitments, decision rationale, dashboards, metrics and leadership-ready summaries.
• Partner with Finance to support budget planning, forecasting, tracking, reconciliation and visibility across Therapeutic Areas, regions and funded activity types, while maintaining clear separation between funding strategy and inappropriate commercial influence.
• Partner with Legal and Ethics & Compliance to ensure appropriate agreements, templates, policy interpretation, transparency/disclosure requirements, issue escalation and remediation steps are embedded into the process.
• Provide clear process guidance to grant requestors and internal stakeholders on request requirements, submission timelines, documentation expectations, decision outcomes and close-out obligations, while preserving the independence of funded activities.
• Develop and maintain practical operating materials, including intake questions, checklists, templates, committee charters, decision logs, SOP/standard inputs, training materials, knowledge-management resources and user guidance for grant-management systems.
• Support audit readiness, governance reviews, quality checks, risk assessments, gap analyses, remediation planning, issue escalation and CAPA-related activities for grants and sponsorship governance in collaboration with the broader Medical Governance Office.
• Drive continuous improvement by introducing reusable tools, digital intake or documentation workflows, dashboards, process simplification and benchmarking insights that improve transparency, efficiency and consistency without adding unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Provide strategic guidance to the Head, Medical Governance Office and senior Medical leadership on funding strategy, portfolio trade-offs, recurring gaps, emerging external education needs, sponsorship governance, committee effectiveness and operating model implications.
• Represent the Medical Governance Office in relevant grants, sponsorships, medical education, external funding, data/system, audit-readiness and cross-functional governance discussions, ensuring enterprise expectations are clearly understood and practically embedded.
• Capture and share learnings, best practices, outcome insights and common market needs to strengthen the enterprise funding governance foundation and inform future areas of scientific and educational interest.

DIMENSIONS AND ASPECTS

• Enterprise-level governance standards with primary portfolio coverage for either the US or International grants and sponsorships portfolio, as assigned. The role works with Global Medical, Therapeutic Areas, regions and local Medical teams as relevant to the assigned portfolio and the Medical governance operating model.
• Operates in a highly regulated, matrixed, multi-country environment with variation in local laws, industry codes, transparency/disclosure requirements, HCP/HCO rules, tax/finance requirements, sponsorship practices and Medical Affairs maturity.
• Acts as a strategic governance and quality partner, helping teams apply consistent standards in a practical, risk-based and audit-ready way.
• Balances scientific and educational impact, patient benefit, independence, transparency, compliance, budget discipline, operational agility and process simplicity.
• Establishes enterprise standards and oversight expectations that enable consistent, defensible and auditable external funding decisions.

Leadership

• Builds trusted, collaborative partnerships across Global Therapeutic Areas, Medical Affairs, Ethics & Compliance, Legal, Finance, regions, LOC Medical teams and external funding operations partners.
• Influences without direct authority across functions, geographies and levels of seniority, creating alignment around common funding standards, committee discipline and practical ways of working.
• Translates complex governance, compliance, funding, transparency and operational requirements into clear, usable standards and decision tools for global, regional and local teams.
• Builds confidence in the grants and sponsorships model by making expectations clear, fair, practical and easy to apply across markets with different levels of maturity.
• Supports change management by helping teams adopt new governance expectations, tools, processes, systems and ways of working with clarity and confidence.
• Models Takeda's values and strengthens a patient-first, science-led, ethically grounded and accountable governance culture across external funding activities.

Decision-making and Autonomy

• Owns grants and sponsorships governance standards, decision criteria, review tools, templates, committee operating materials and supporting guidance within the Medical Governance Office mandate.
• Recommends the appropriate funding category, review pathway, required functional input, minimum documentation, committee review expectations and follow-up actions based on the nature and complexity of each request.
• Chairs and/or facilitates committee discussions within agreed decision rights, ensuring that decisions are transparent, objective, consistently documented and aligned with applicable policies and governance requirements.
• Determines when additional cross-functional review, senior input or escalation is needed for higher-complexity requests, unclear funding boundaries, reputational considerations, budget pressure, policy questions or potential independence concerns.
• Advises the Head, Medical Governance Office and relevant Medical leadership on grants and sponsorships risks, portfolio patterns, recurring gaps, audit findings, process issues, budget visibility and operating model implications.
• Exercises judgment under ambiguity while ensuring decisions remain aligned to Takeda's ethical standards, enterprise policies, functional requirements, local regulations and applicable industry codes.

EDUCATION, BEHAVIOURAL COMPETENCIES AND SKILLS

Education & Experience

• Degree in life sciences, pharmacy, medicine, medical education, public health, healthcare management, business or related discipline required; advanced degree such as MD, PharmD, PhD, MPH, MSc, MBA or equivalent preferred.
• 8+ years of experience in Medical Affairs, Medical Education, Grants Management, Sponsorships, Medical Governance, Compliance, or related functions within biopharma, biotech or healthcare; 10+ years preferred for broader global scope.
• Strong understanding of independent medical education, medical grants, sponsorships, donations, HCO/HCP interactions, funding independence, provider relationships, letters of agreement, transparency/disclosure expectations and global/local execution realities.
• Experience developing or implementing governance frameworks, SOPs, control models, committee processes, decision criteria, audit-readiness activities, dashboards, reporting routines or cross-functional operating models.
• Experience with grant-management systems, data quality, repository management, documentation standards, budget tracking, reconciliation, metrics and close-out processes preferred.
• Experience working across multiple countries, regions or markets with varied maturity levels, regulatory environments and industry-code expectations preferred.

Competencies & Skills

• Ability to translate enterprise governance expectations into simple, usable tools and guidance that support consistent execution without adding unnecessary complexity.
• Strong governance, risk-based thinking and systems-thinking capability, with the ability to convert complex funding and compliance requirements into practical enterprise standards and decision tools.
• Strong portfolio judgment, including the ability to identify patterns, trade-offs, budget implications and systemic execution risks across multiple Therapeutic Areas, geographies and funding categories.
• Excellent cross-functional leadership, communication, influence and stakeholder-management skills across cultures, functions and seniority levels.
• Executive communication skills, with the ability to frame status, implications, options, risks and recommendations in a concise, leadership-ready manner.
• Ability to balance compliance rigor with operational practicality, avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy while maintaining strong patient, scientific, quality and company safeguards.
• High attention to detail, clarity and documentation quality, with sound judgment in confidential, sensitive or reputationally important situations.
• Ability to support transformation and change management by helping teams adopt new standards, tools, systems, processes and ways of working.
• Commitment to Takeda's values and to advancing a patient-first, science-led and ethically grounded Medical culture globally.

Locations

Zurich, SwitzerlandBoston, MA

Base Salary Range:

CHF169,400.00 - CHF232,870.00

For information about our benefits, please click here.

Worker Type

Employee

Worker Sub-Type

Regular

Time Type

Full time