Senior Director, Infrastructure and Operations - Deciphera Pharmaceuticals

Deciphera, a member of ONO, is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing important new medicines to improve the lives of people with cancer. We are leveraging our proprietary switch-control kinase inhibitor platform and deep expertise in kinase biology to develop a broad portfolio of innovative medicines.

Enabled by our proprietary drug discovery platform, Deciphera has developed a diverse pipeline of wholly-owned drug candidates. QINLOCK® (ripretinib) is Deciphera’s switch control inhibitor developed for the treatment of fourth-line GIST. QINLOCK is approved in Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United States, and the United Kingdom.  We wholly own QINLOCK and all of our drug candidates with the exception of a development and commercialization out-license agreement for QINLOCK in Greater China. In addition to QINLOCK, we have identified and advanced multiple product candidates from our platform into clinical studies, including vimseltinib and DCC-3116.  

See here for more details on our portfolio.

We offer an outstanding culture and opportunity for personal and professional growth guided by our “PATHS” Core Values and how we work together. We are proud to be Great Place to Work Certified 2023 and rank #25 on Fortune’s Best Places to Work Small and Midsized Biotech Companies in 2023. Find more details about our award-winning culture here. 

The Role:

This is the most senior role in the infrastructure and operations (I&O) function within I&T, accountable for IT I&O throughout the organization. The head of I&O is responsible for the delivery of all I&T infrastructure and related I&T operations used to enable business capabilities and services across the enterprise.

This role reports to the VP, I&T and has line management responsibilities for Digital End User Experience, I&T Solutions & Engineering, Business Application Services, Information & Architecture, and Collaboration Services

The head of I&O brings experience, knowledge, and future vision for transforming the I&O function including its strategy, operating model, product and service offerings and workforce. The role holder is a senior stakeholder in all relationships with externally sourced infrastructure and operations capabilities.

As a key member of I&T leadership, this role contributes to the development and execution of the enterprise-wide I&T strategy and is responsible for ensuring I&O strategy is fully aligned, positioning I&O to deliver compelling business value.

This position will work on-site at our Waltham, MA office. Deciphera expects a minimum number of three days a week on site, with flexibility as to hours on site on any given day to accommodate work/life balance. Specific days and times spent in the office should be determined in conjunction with your manager.

What You’ll Do:

• Sets the mission, vision, and strategy of the I&O organization to maximize the success of business and I&T enterprise initiatives.
• Introduces innovative, differentiating infrastructure and operations capabilities that enhance our overall competitive capabilities and enhance employee productivity.
• Works with the I&T leadership on the service portfolio and governance required to prioritize resources, including budget. Works with key stakeholders to measure and prioritize technical debt remediation.
• Builds successful stakeholder relationships with other I&T and business key stakeholders by developing a clear understanding of business needs, acting as a trusted advisor, and ensuring cost-effective delivery of I&T services to meet those needs.
• Creates and aligns an I&O value map by linking targeted business outcomes with the future-state business capabilities required to achieve them.
• Drives alignment of I&O strategies to the organization’s environmental, social and governance goals. 
• Develops and controls the annual I&O budget to ensure that it's consistent with the overall strategic objectives of I&T and the enterprise and is within plan. Creates a culture of continuous cost optimization.
• Defines, develops, and manages a comprehensive and integrated IT Service Management (ITSM) landscape, based on best-practice processes, disciplines, and related toolsets. This includes delivery of a comprehensive IT asset management program.
• Collaborates with the Information Security Officer (ISO) to ensure I&O contributes to, embraces, and applies security strategy.
• Operates a formal governance mechanism to establish and monitor effective controls for the processes and functions performed by I&O teams. Supports periodic reviews by audit teams, compliance teams and other risk-related functions as required.
• Develops and executes a strategy to improve awareness of the business value that the Infrastructure and Operations function provides, and continuously seeks to ensure alignment to customer needs. 
• Designs and develops a strong and diverse I&O leadership team, together with a reporting structure for the function.
• Works collaboratively with direct reports to support their career progression, nurture their development and to help them realize their potential.
• Improves I&T resilience collaborating with the ISO by executing strategies that improve reliability, tolerability, and disaster recovery readiness.
• Keeps track of trends and provides direction on what emerging technologies should be incorporated into I&O products and services to successfully deliver overall I&T strategy.
• Champions I&O involvement in the organization's innovation efforts and encourages experimentation with new solutions to avail business opportunities.
• Provides strategic direction and oversight for the full life cycle of I&T systems, working in close partnership with peers, and identifies where common approaches, solutions, and shared platforms provided by I&O could drive efficiency. 
• Directs the development of an I&O sourcing strategy and provides executive oversight for strategic vendor and partner relationship management.
• Works with HR and the VP, I&T to develop and execute workforce plans that ensure I&O can supply skilled resources to meet demand.
• Develops the maturity of I&O to improve efficiency, deliver new innovations and increase collaboration with other IT and business areas (e.g., through Agile, DevOps, platform, and product approaches).
• Drives the adoption of (and commitment towards) service improvements through a programmatic approach to continuous improvement which also measures impact and shares results.
• Supports the VP, I&T by implementing infrastructure solutions that align to the enterprise architecture framework and roadmap.
• Drives the development and adoption of enterprise technology standards, governance processes and performance metrics.
• Continuously evaluates the business value of I&O, including the use of metrics such as Key Performance Indicators, Outcome Driven Metrics and Objectives and Key Results.
• Collaborates with peer I&T Leaders to ensure knowledge and insight can be freely shared.

What You’ll Bring:

Education & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or master's degree in computer science, information systems, business administration, related field, or equivalent work experience
• Ten or more years of experience in I&T, preferably in LifeSciences/ Biotech or business/industry
• Five or more years of leadership responsibilities, including strategy, budgeting, key performance indicators and metrics, and staffing

Skills & Experience 

• Exceptional leadership skills, with the ability to develop and communicate an I&O vision that inspires and motivates staff and aligns with the IT and business strategy
• Effective influencing and negotiation skills in complex environments where resources required for success may not be in direct control of this role
• Evangelizing and implementing transformational initiatives where the target state included agile, DevOps, SRE, cloud adoption at scale.
• Consolidating operations capabilities in large, complex enterprise organizations to deliver improved efficiency, while balancing customer preferences for agility. 
• Excellent analytical, strategic conceptual thinking, strategic planning, and execution skills
• Ability to build consensus, make decisions based on many variables, and gain support for major initiatives. 
• Self-starter who self-assesses and solicits feedback from others to improve their performance.
• Experience developing strategies to leverage fusion teams that embrace business technologists.
• Strong business acumen, including industry, domain-specific knowledge of the enterprise and its business units.
• Delivery of hybrid working excellence to improve customer and user experiences. 
• Developing staff including coaching, mentoring and performance management.
• Building cloud management solutions, including software development, integration, and ongoing engineering aspects. 
• Creating self-service mechanisms to streamline infrastructure provisioning and ongoing management.
• Applying AI / ML to solve large data challenges and / or to enhance the customer experience.
• Budget planning and financial management, preferably with showback and/or chargeback models
• Supporting the shift from CapEx to OpEx with processes - e.g., those to comprehensively manage and optimize cloud costs in a collaborative fashion.
• Deep understanding of current and emerging I&O technologies and practices, and how other enterprises are employing them.
• Applying I&O capabilities to achieve regulatory or statutory compliance requirements.
• Establishing and improving DevOps, as well as other working practices (e.g., ITIL).
• Demonstrated ability to develop and execute a strategic staffing plan that ensures the right people are in the right roles at the right time, and employees are highly engaged and satisfied.
• Leading cloud adoption (at scale), including establishing governance mechanisms, delivering migration projects and modifying I&O’s target operating model.
• Developing governance practices to track and measure the quality of services and maintain service improvement plans.
• Third-party management, working closely with sourcing and vendor managers

Deciphera offers a comprehensive benefits package that includes but is not limited to the following:

• Non-accrual paid time off
• Summer vacation bonus
• Global, company-wide summer and winter shutdowns
• An annual lifestyle allowance
• Monthly cell phone stipend
• Internal rewards and recognition program
• Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan with company match
• Life and Supplemental life insurance for family
• Short and Long Term Disability insurance
• Health savings account with company contribution
• Flexible spending account for either health care and/or dependent care.
• Family planning benefit
• Generous parental leave
• [if applicable] Car allowance

Deciphera, a member of ONO, is a company headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Our state-of-the-art research facility is located in Lawrence, Kansas and our European operations are run out of Switzerland.

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY INFORMATION

Deciphera is committed to equal employment opportunity and values diversity. To ensure that we comply with reporting requirements and to learn more about how we can increase diversity in our candidate pool, we invite you to voluntarily provide demographic information in a confidential survey at the end of this application. Providing this information is optional. It will not be accessible or used in the hiring process, and has no effect on your opportunity for employment. This information will also be treated confidentially.  Our commitment to increasing diversity in our candidate pool does not affect our commitment to equal employment opportunity, including our ongoing commitment to make all hiring and other employment decisions solely on a nondiscriminatory basis.