Head of US Analytics & Commercial Operations - Job ID: 1635

Ascendis Pharma is a dynamic, fast-growing global biopharmaceutical company with locations in Denmark, Europe, and the United States. Today, we're advancing programs in Endocrinology Rare Disease and Oncology.

Here at Ascendis, we pride ourselves on exceptional science, visionary leadership, and skilled and passionate colleagues.

Guided by our core values of Patients, Science, and Passion, we use our TransCon® drug development platform to fulfill our mission of developing new and potentially best-in-class therapies to address unmet medical needs.

Our culture fosters a place where skilled, adaptable, and highly resourceful professionals can truly make their mark. We offer a dynamic workplace for employees to grow and develop their skills.

Position Summary

Head of US Analytics & Commercial Operations will play a critical role in setting the vision and continuing to build the operating model, capabilities, structure, and talent base of the U.S.  Analytics & Commercial Operations group at Ascendis.

The U.S. comprises the majority of Ascendis’ overall business, as we continue to grow and support the launches of multiple products in our rare endocrinology portfolio. This individual will lead this function to support Ascendis’ integrative analytics and commercial operations needs in support of our largest market.

This integrative function includes three major areas:

• Forecasting and Market Research
• Field and Secondary Data Analytics
• Commercial Effectiveness Operations (e.g., CRM, materials management)

In addition to the above, this function will also partner closely with Marketing and IT on enhancing digital delivery and execution. This individual will build, lead and develop the team of highly skilled professionals responsible for serving as the integrated, strategic engine supporting our business decision-making, short-term and long range business planning, as well as effective leadership of commercial operations. They will also help to recruit talent as the group continues to grow.

The role will be based in Princeton, NJ and will report directly to the President of Ascendis US. They will serve as a member of the US Leadership Team, collaborating closely with the broader US Business Unit and key global partners spanning Global Commercial Analytics, IT and Finance.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and lead a high performing, integrated US Analytics and Commercial Operations function that will serve as a primary source of business insight and planning (e.g., monthly business reviews) for the rapidly growing US Business Unit to advance go-to-market strategies and drive strong business performance
• Own US product revenue forecast and business tracking; drive identification of KPIs and business performance, and identify key analytics and insights to support the Ascendis business
• Build and evolve US forecasting capabilities to drive both near-term and long-range business planning, embedding ROI value framework across key commercial strategies and tactics
• Deliver market, customer, and product insights that are actionable for the US to support the achievement of US Commercial goals
• Integrate broader US insights and analytics efforts across a variety of disciplines and data sources, both qualitative and quantitative, primary and secondary, large datasets and key anecdotes
• Define needs for and analytical uses of commercial pharmaceutical secondary data sources including claims data, prescription data, specialty pharmacy data, channel data to determine application to key business questions
• Experiment and embed AI capabilities to ensure more rapid and scalable data mining and insights generation. Stay current on market trends and industry "best practices", driving internal and external best practices
• Lead a high performing field operations function, including field sizing, territory optimization, incentive compensation, CRM, and sales reporting and analysis
• Develop framework, guiding principles, analytics and reporting systems to enhance the sales process and pipeline management, while maximizing the usage of CRM / SFDC system to support call planning, account views, new business forecasts, etc.
• Partner with IT and digital delivery organization to embed and enhance latest technologies to enhance the effectiveness of our go-to-market tactics
• Manage multiple external vendor/partner relationships, as well as internal collaborations, to ensure high quality and insightful deliverables to help manage the business
• Partner with key cross-functional and global partners, to both shape and align to key global governance forecasting and analytics processes  
• As the group grows, recruit talent and inspire, coach, manage and develop employees to achieve and grow as individuals and a cohesive team
• Establish clarity of roles and responsibilities, processes, and systems within the team and in collaboration with cross-functional partners

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Experience building and leading an analytics and commercial operations team, including recruiting talent and defining processes and systems for cross-functional collaboration and data governance
• Strong understanding of and experience with building patient-based and trend-based forecasting capabilities across both near-term phasing and long-range forecast horizons, performance tracking and reporting
• Deep subject matter expertise in commercial pharmaceutical data sources and their application to commercial business questions, including claims data, prescription data, specialty pharmacy data, channel data, etc.
• Extensive experience in Sales Force Analytics including Sales Force Design, Targeting, and Incentive Compensation
• Ability to interact and communicate with all levels in the organization, including executive management, and to bring logic and data-driven approaches to bear in influencing decisions
• Strong cross-functional collaborator: partner to US cross-functional partners, Global partners, Finance and IT
• Minimum of 10-20 years of experience in biotech / pharma in Commercial Analytics and Insights and / or Commercial roles of increasing responsibility, preferably with experience in small- to medium-sized organizations
• Experience in Rare Disease preferred
• Minimum Bachelor's degree; advanced degree (e.g., MBA, PhD) preferred
• Availability to travel up to 20-30% of the time domestically and internationally

• 401(k) plan with company match
• Medical, dental, and vision plans
• Company-offered Life and Accidental Death & Dismemberment (AD&D) insurance
• Company-provided short and long-term disability benefits
• Unique offerings of Pet Insurance and Legal Insurance
• Employee Assistance Program
• Employee Discounts
• Professional Development
• Health Saving Account (HSA)
• Flexible Spending Accounts
• Various incentive compensation plans
• Accident, Critical Illness, and Hospital Indemnity Insurance  
• Mental Health resources
• Paid leave benefits for new parents

A note to recruiters:

We do not allow external search party solicitation.  Presentation of candidates without written permission from the Ascendis Pharma Inc Human Resources team (specifically from: Talent Acquisition Partner or Human Resources Director) is not allowed.  If this occurs your ownership of these candidates will not be acknowledged.