Senior Director, Team Lead US Medical Affairs, COPD

Job Description

The Senior Director, Team Lead (TL) of U.S. Medical Affairs (USMA) for COPD (Respiratory), position resides in the Value & Implementation (V&I) organization, which includes Global Medical and Scientific Affairs as well as Outcomes Research. The COPD TL drives strategic clarity, operational excellence, and cross-functional collaboration to enable impactful scientific engagement and insight generation. They are key leader responsible for guiding, coaching and developing Field Medical Affairs Professionals (FMAPs) to execute high-quality scientific and medical activities in alignment with USMA and enterprise priorities. In addition, they ensure all work reflects our company’s commitment to scientific integrity, ethical leadership, and patient-centered value.

Responsibilities and Primary Activities

Strategic Leadership

• Provides clear direction, vision and alignment to USMA strategy and enterprise priorities.

• Fosters team cohesion, morale and resilience through effective communication, recognition and accountability.

• Creates a culture of trust and psychological safety (i.e., safe to speak up) that promotes continuous learning and growth.

• Empowers team members to lead, take ownership, and drive innovation across the organization.

• Serves as a trusted partner to senior leaders, offering insights that shape decisions and strategic planning.

• Sets clear, measurable objectives aligned to USMA goals and monitors progress against established performance expectations.

• Ensures accountability by the disciplined use of performance documentation, highlighting impact, and addressing gaps in a timely manner.

• Acts as a responsible data steward to inform decision-making and demonstrates impact by the use of data, metrics, and reporting tools.

• Models integrity and ensure team adherence to compliance, medical governance, and regulatory requirements, fostering a culture of transparency and accountability.

• Contributes to annual budget planning through a clear understanding of future needs, effectively manages team budget, and acts as a financial steward of company resources.

Medical and Scientific Strategy

• Ensures team understanding and execution of medical and scientific strategies within assigned therapeutic areas or functions.

• Translates strategic objectives into actionable engagement plans and measurable team deliverables.

• Monitors execution quality, scientific accuracy, and compliance with regulatory, legal and governance requirements.

• Guides teams to engage confidently in scientific exchange, strengthening scientific rigor and external stakeholder value. Ensure teams assert the company’s evidence-based scientific perspective with fair-balance and professionalism.

• Integrates field insights into strategic planning, enabling continuous refinement of USMA medical and scientific priorities.

Mentoring and Talent Development

• Coaches, mentors, and develops team members through structured feedback, goal setting, and guiding individualized development plans.

• Recruits, onboards and trains while providing ongoing coaching and performance management.

• Strengthens team capability by identifying growth opportunities.

• Partners with Human Resources (HR) and leadership to ensure succession readiness within the team.

Required Qualifications, Skills and Experience

Minimum

• MD, PhD, PharmD, DNP, or DO with demonstrated ability to effectively lead and coach scientific/medical colleagues at all skill and knowledge levels.

• Three (3) years in customer-facing, field medical-affairs role or relevant experience.

• Excellent interpersonal communication and presentation skills, strong personal integrity, teamwork abilities (including the ability to lead a therapeutic team across a geographical area), business acumen, and focus on scientific education and dialogue.

• Relevant therapeutic area knowledge (respiratory, specifically COPD)

• Ability to organize, prioritize, and work effectively in a constantly changing environment and to motivate a team to do the same.

• Desire to develop and manage a team in an environment of belonging, engagement and empowerment by:

• Navigating change in an evolving health care landscape.

• Leveraging diversity and inclusion to ensure business value, per global diversity and inclusion strategy.

• Ensuring accountability to drive an inclusive culture.

• Strengthening the foundational elements of diversity.

Preferred

• Five years of experience in a field-facing role

• Previous experience managing field-based medical personnel

• Relevant therapeutic-area knowledge and/or knowledge of the U.S. health-care delivery system.

• Previous management experience, especially field-based medical professionals.

• Strong working knowledge of the Microsoft Office Suite and ability to interface effectively with a variety of technical platforms, including Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI).

• Scientific/medical research experience, including scientific/medical publications.

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The salary range for this role is

This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, government requirements, and business or organizational needs.

The successful candidate will be eligible for annual bonus and long-term incentive, if applicable.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits. Available benefits include medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, including 401(k), paid holidays, vacation, and compassionate and sick days. More information about benefits is available at https://jobs.merck.com/us/en/compensation-and-benefits.

You can apply for this role through https://jobs.merck.com/us/en (or via the Workday Jobs Hub if you are a current employee). The application deadline for this position is stated on this posting.

San Francisco Residents Only: We will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment in compliance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance

Los Angeles Residents Only: We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance

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