Director, Strategy, Operations & Reputation

At Gilead, we’re creating a healthier world for all people. For more than 35 years, we’ve tackled diseases such as HIV, viral hepatitis, COVID-19 and cancer – working relentlessly to develop therapies that help improve lives and to ensure access to these therapies across the globe. We continue to fight against the world’s biggest health challenges, and our mission requires collaboration, determination and a relentless drive to make a difference.

Every member of Gilead’s team plays a critical role in the discovery and development of life-changing scientific innovations. Our employees are our greatest asset as we work to achieve our bold ambitions, and we’re looking for the next wave of passionate and ambitious people ready to make a direct impact.

We believe every employee deserves a great leader. People Leaders are the cornerstone to the employee experience at Gilead and Kite. As a people leader now or in the future, you are the key driver in evolving our culture and creating an environment where every employee feels included, developed and empowered to fulfil their aspirations. Join Gilead and help create possible, together.

Director, Strategy, Operations & Reputation

Gilead Sciences seeks an exceptional business-focused communications executive to lead the global planning for the enterprise & corporate team of the public affairs function and to direct the development of functional excellence programs for this team. This role covers planning, strategic operations and excellence for media relations, employee engagement, thought leadership and corporate brand.

This role requires an influential, effective and bold leader who is able to work with the Vice President Corporate & Enterprise Communications, the Public Affairs Leadership Team and cross functional leaders such as Commercial, Government Affairs and Medical Affairs, to set the strategic priorities for the function and bring it all together into a coherent public affairs strategic plan that drives our business goals and enhances and protects our brand and company reputation.

This role will be based in Foster City, California
, reports to the Vice President of Corporate & Enterprise Communications, and will be an integral member of the Corporate & Enterprise Communications team.

• Lead the development of the Global Strategic Corporate & Enterprise Communications plan, setting annual strategic priorities aligned to our business strategy, defining areas where public affairs can have the greatest impact on our business and reputation, and working synergistically to implement this strategy to public affairs teams across the world.
• Ensure public affairs strategy and planning occurs in synergy with the commercial business planning cycle, (global to local), ensuring that individual public affairs teams are coordinated with each other and that affiliates are briefed in a timely manner to develop their local executional plans.
• Build powerful two-way relationships with the Public Affairs Leadership Team and key cross-functional business leaders, and bring in broader internal and external insights to ensure the function is responding in a coherent, coordinated way to address immediate and long term
• Develop dashboards, operating rhythms, processes and systems to enable integrated operations for communications and public affairs channels.
• Identify areas where public affairs counsel and influence can be strengthened within internal teams.
• Drive efficiency, excellence and scalability in the public affairs function by overseeing priority function-wide projects such as improved planning and processes, metrics and evaluation, and people/culture development. Including the research, benchmarking and analysis of data to optimize program outcomes.
• Aid the VP with preparation for the Leadership Team meetings, including agenda development, speaker briefings and managing meeting outputs. Manage the cadence for Leadership Team meetings and other communications touchpoints.
• Ensure VP is prepared for key meetings with essential information and the detail to answer critical questions. Represent the VP at senior meetings, as required.
• Partner…