Head, Diversity Strategy

The Diversity Strategy Lead has an awareness of the current state of diversity in clinical trials from an R&D, enterprise as well as external environment lens. He/she has knowledge of the regulatory environment and its implications for our clinical trial activities across the entire portfolio. The ideal candidate will have expertise in the communication and stakeholder management skills needed to influence senior leaders within R&D and their teams in order to drive change. The Diversity Strategy Lead will partner with other enterprise representatives to create and execute an integrated R&D strategy focused on achieving measurable increases in the diversity of clinical trial populations.

Responsibilities

Responsible for leading the development and implementation of a diversity plan which includes tactics that seek to enhance clinical trial awareness in various patient groups (age, gender, race, ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation) and result in greater recruitment of sites/patients that are more representative of the patient population.

Actively engages with multiple stakeholders both within Global Clinical Operations, R&D as well as throughout the enterprise to ensure alignment and coordination of efforts to enhance diversity in clinical trials; continuously communicates the benefit of tactics which support the engagement of diverse patients.

Partners with enterprise colleagues on the development/maintenance of internal and external relationships with diversity-focused sites and/or patient organizations to gain insight into their clinical trial experience and better inform our development and recruitment efforts. Collaborates with these organizations around awareness of and access to clinical trials and the drug development process.

Partners with Planning and Operational Excellence and BI&A to contribute to the site selection process by recommending inclusion of clinical trial sites which represent larger percentages of patients from various racial or ethnic groups relevant to the specific indication being studied.

Actively collaborates with enterprise site & patient facing teams (such as RCO, Global Advocacy, Multi-Channel Hub, HQ/US Medical, BMS Foundation, PBRGs) to ensure awareness of and alignment with ongoing diversity-focused efforts. Partners on topics of mutual interest such as identification of community/diversity sites/networks, collection of the "right" data to address health authority questions, patient-focused drug development, etc.

Actively seeks opportunities to drive diversity in clinical trials through awareness of external environment, exploration of novel training/engagement tactics and membership and/or engagement with internal efforts like with PBRGs and external partnerships like Transcelerate Biopharma or key academic institutions.

Demonstrates expert knowledge of change management principles and assumes the lead change agent role to drive alignment and coordination of efforts across R&D to increase diversity in clinical trials.

Serves as a heavy contributor to the ongoing development, maintenance and enhancement of BMS Study Connect by seeking ways to leverage it as a communication platform to drive awareness of and access to BMS Clinical Trials.

Communicates a compelling vision of BMS clinical trials to outside organizations that generates respect and commitment to BMS as an industry leader in site and patient engagement efforts and functions as a subject matter expert on the drug development/clinical trial process.

Qualifications

BA/BS and/or MS degree with 10 years of pharmaceutical clinical development industry experience.

Demonstrated ability to manage complex projects with limited supervision and build strong relationships with internal and external partners.

Knowledge of the drug development process and the project management of clinical trials.

Proven ability to partner effectively with colleagues across multiple functions, geographies and at all levels of the enterprise.

Strong, proven stakeholder management and communication skills, particularly with senior leaders encouraged.

Position is based in Central New Jersey and involves limited travel.