Global Head of External Healthcare and Scientific leadership

AstraZeneca’s Bio Pharmaceuticals Business Unit (BBU) is at the forefront of transforming patient outcomes across key therapy areas, including Cardiovascular, Renal & Metabolism (CVRM) and Respiratory & Immunology (R&I). Driven by science and innovation, we work to deliver life-changing medicines that address some of the most pressing health challenges globally, playing a meaningful role in achieving AstraZeneca’s Bold Ambition for 2030—to pioneer science, lead in our disease areas, and improve millions of lives.

Our teams combine deep scientific expertise with a patient-centric approach, ensuring that every breakthrough is meaningful and impactful, while fostering a collaborative, inclusive culture that values curiosity, agility, and lifelong learning. The Head of External Healthcare and Scientific leadership leads AstraZeneca’s external environment-shaping agenda across priority disease areas, positioning the company as a scientific and disease-area leader within the external healthcare ecosystem.

The role is responsible for moving beyond traditional stakeholder engagement to build a strategic, outcome-led capability that helps shape the scientific agenda, influences evidence and guideline evolution, mobilizes high-value external partners, and translates insight and partnerships into measurable external impact.

Key Responsibilities Strategy and leadership:
Lead the external scientific engagement strategy across priority disease areas, with focus on disease leadership, environment shaping, and measurable outcomes. Scientific agenda:
Shapes the scientific agenda in partnership with TA leadership, Medical, and R&D, identifying emerging themes, evidence gaps, and future care priorities to inform strategic decisions. Stakeholder management:
Build and lead a deliberate strategy across key experts, societies, policymakers, healthcare leaders, centres of excellence, trialists, and emerging leaders, including early identification of future influencers across the external ecosystem. Environment shaping:
Influence the external scientific and healthcare environment to support evidence generation, guideline evolution, implementation progress, and future standards of care. Partnerships:
Develop and oversee strategic partnerships that deliver visible scientific, implementation, and health-system impact. Insight to action:
Translate external insight into internal strategic action, advising evidence plans, launch strategy, congress priorities, partnership choices, and medical priorities. Cross-functional alignment:
Integrate stakeholder strategy, congress presence, society engagement, and insight flow, acting as the primary integration point between Global, US, China and Japan medical organisations to ensure aligned external engagement, stakeholder strategy and scientific positioning. Execution and governance:
Drive alignment, execution, and governance across a complex matrix environment, ensuring delivery against strategic priorities and measurable outcomes. External representation:
Represent AstraZeneca externally with credibility and influence in relevant scientific and healthcare forums. People leadership:
Lead and develop the team to build a high-performing external scientific engagement capability. Experience, Qualifications and Skills Essential

Qualifications:

MD, PharmD, PhD, MPH, MBA, or other relevant postgraduate qualification.

Experience:

10+ years in the pharmaceutical, biotech, healthcare, or related sector, with strong background in medical affairs, scientific strategy, external affairs, evidence, market access, policy, healthcare systems, or strategic marketing. Stakeholder management:
Significant experience engaging, influencing, and building credibility with external scientific and healthcare partners, including key experts, societies, policymakers, healthcare leaders, centres of excellence, trialists, and emerging leaders, with a proven ability to develop strategic stakeholder plans that drive scientific leadership, partnership opportunities, and measurable external impact. Partnership management and shaping:
Experience developing and managing strategic partnerships with clear objectives…