Director Client Services - Life Sciences Practice Lead

We are looking for a Director, Client Services - Life Sciences Practice Lead to join our growing team of experts. This role reports to the Global Head of Healthcare and Life Science, with travel to clients as needed.

This position carries two accountabilities that reinforce each other:

• First, they lead the Life Sciences practice at Hakkoda, an IBM company, owning the segment's strategy, offerings, pipeline health, talent, and reputation across pharma, biotech, medtech, diagnostics, CROs, and life sciences distribution.
• Second, they are a hands-on Client Services Director on our most strategic Life Sciences accounts: the primary representative of the delivery capabilities of Hakkoda, an IBM company to those clients and the executive accountable for growing them.

The ideal candidate is an expert in their clients' businesses, challenges, and goals, with established trusted relationships at the most senior client levels. They are fluent in how Life Sciences works: the R&D-to-commercial value chain, the regulatory environment (GxP, 21 CFR Part 11, data integrity, validation), the data domains that matter (clinical, safety, RWD/RWE, commercial, supply chain and manufacturing), and the business pressures behind them (pipeline productivity, launch performance, cost of quality, and the push to make AI usable in a regulated setting). They can sit across from a Head of Clinical Operations, a Chief Commercial Officer, a Head of Quality, or a CDO and be credible on their agenda, then translate that agenda into a data and AI program on Snowflake that Hakkoda, an IBM company can deliver.

For the practice, the Director defines where Life Sciences plays and how it wins. They own the practice plan (target sub-segments, priority accounts, offerings, and the revenue and margin plan behind them), shape and package offerings around the questions Life Sciences leaders are actually funding, and build on existing accelerators such as Clinical Trial Operations, Pharmacovigilance Signal Management, Batch Release and Continued Process Verification, Commercial Launch Analytics, FDA AI Readiness and Continuous Compliance, and Trusted Research Environment. They turn delivered work into repeatable IP, set the practice's stance on regulated delivery, and act as the Life Sciences face of Hakkoda, an IBM company to both go-to-market channels, IBM client partners and Snowflake account teams, so that sellers reach for us first. They build the Life Sciences bench, serve as the escalation point and quality bar for Life Sciences delivery across all accounts, and represent the practice externally through conferences, partner events, and published content.

On accounts, the Director personally leads a portfolio of strategic Life Sciences accounts. They consult on the best path forward to achieve the client's strategic goals, build relationships from the primary point of contact through the C-suite, align with the client's partner account teams (Snowflake, IBM, Sigma, Alation, Fivetran) on a shared account plan, and hold indirect responsibility for all delivery services on their portfolio. They pursue opportunities for additional services, review client margins against Finance targets, lead the pitch process on existing accounts, draft and negotiate SOWs and amendments, mentor Engagement Managers on account management, and serve as the point of escalation on client issues, from cross-workstream performance problems to SOW and SLA conversations. They handle difficult client and employee conversations directly, solve resourcing and personnel issues as they arise, keep client and employee retention high across every track, facilitate staffing across tracks and the broader HCLS bench, and make the business case for hires and promotions.

This job can be performed from anywhere in the US.