Vice President, Head of Portfolio & Program Strategy

POSITION SUMMARY:

The Vice President, Head of Portfolio & Program Strategy will serve as a strategic thought partner to the executive team and an enterprise integrator across Umoja's portfolio, responsible for shaping portfolio strategy and enabling the effective advancement of programs through clinical development and toward commercialization.

This leader will establish, lead, and continually evolve Umoja's Portfolio and Program Management function, aligning cross-functional teams around clear priorities, integrated development plans, critical milestones, risks, and resource requirements. The Vice President will strengthen execution discipline, improve portfolio visibility, and enable timely, well-informed, and durable decisions across the organization.

Working closely with executive, functional, and program leaders, this individual will combine strategic portfolio leadership with operational rigor, ensuring teams have clear objectives, accountabilities, decision rights, and realistic execution plans.

This position will ideally be based out of our Seattle, WA office and work onsite at least 2 days/week. 

CORE ACCOUNTABILITIES:

Portfolio Strategy & Prioritization

• Drive enterprise-level portfolio strategy in alignment with scientific, clinical, operational, and commercial objectives.
• Lead portfolio prioritization, trade-off, and investment discussions to support effective allocation of resources across programs.
• Establish and maintain an enterprise-level portfolio view that clearly communicates program status, critical paths, stage gates, decision points, risks, opportunities, and resource implications.
• Build and institutionalize portfolio analytics, scenario planning, and risk assessment processes to support executive decision-making.
• Translate complex scientific, clinical, operational, and financial inputs into clear scenarios and actionable recommendations.
• Ensure alignment and integration across R&D, Clinical Development, Clinical Operations, CMC/Technical Operations, Regulatory, Quality, Translational Medicine, Medical Affairs, Finance, and other enabling functions.

Program Leadership & Execution

• Establish, lead, and continually evolve the company’s Portfolio and Program Management function as a high-performing organizational capability.
• Lead cross-functional portfolio and program planning and execution, ensuring program teams operate with clear objectives, integrated timelines, defined milestones, dependencies, and accountabilities.
• Partner with program and functional leaders to develop and maintain integrated development plans, timelines, budgets, and resource requirements.
• Define and establish consistent standards, tools, and processes for program planning, execution, and reporting across the organization.
• Ensure integrated project plans reflect cross-functional dependencies, critical paths, major decision points, and key development milestones.
• Partner with functional leaders to ensure consistent and transparent tracking of timelines, budgets, milestones, risks, and resource requirements at the program and portfolio levels.
• Balance urgency and ambition with realistic, credible, and executable program plans.

Risk, Resource & Capacity Management

• Identify portfolio and program risks early and lead cross-functional development of mitigation and contingency plans.
• Ensure material risks and issues are escalated at the appropriate time with clear implications, options, and practical recommendations.
• Drive integrated resource and capacity planning across programs, identifying constraints, dependencies, investment choices, and potential impacts to portfolio timelines and value.
• Support leadership in evaluating resource trade-offs and prioritization decisions across the portfolio.
• Maintain effective portfolio-level risk registers and mechanisms for monitoring mitigation activities and emerging risks.

Governance & Decision-Making

• Establish and manage governance forums that support portfolio decision-making and program oversight.
• Develop governance practices that enable timely escalation, focused leadership discussions, clear decision rights, durable decisions, and disciplined follow-through.
• Create decision-ready materials that clearly frame key issues, alternatives, risks, implications, and recommendations.
• Establish standardized portfolio dashboards, decision logs, risk registers, and reporting frameworks that provide reliable sources of truth for leadership and program teams.
• Deliver clear, data-driven portfolio and program updates to senior leadership and the Board of Directors when required.
• Promote transparency, accountability, and alignment across the organization through consistent governance and communication practices.

Team & Organizational Leadership

• Recruit, lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team of program and project leaders capable of supporting the portfolio from development through commercialization.
• Empower program leaders to drive accountability, decision-making, and execution within cross-functional teams.
• Establish common expectations, capabilities, and ways of working across the Portfolio and Program Management organization.
• Foster a culture of transparency, collaboration, constructive challenge, accountability, and enterprise-first decision-making.
• Build organizational capabilities that can scale with company growth, including portfolio management tools, dashboards, governance systems, and PPM infrastructure.
• Anticipate future capabilities, operating model, and organizational changes in partnership with senior leadership and HR as required,  to enable Umoja as the company advances programs toward later-stage development and commercialization.
• Serve as a culture carrier for collaboration, operational discipline, and delivery excellence.

Strategic Planning

• Lead portfolio-wide input into annual operating plans, long-range planning, and corporate strategy.
• Integrate portfolio priorities, program plans, resource requirements, risks, and key assumptions into company planning.
• Provide senior leadership with transparent assessments of portfolio scenarios and trade-offs to enable enterprise-level decision-making.
• Contribute as a member of the senior leadership team to enterprise decision-making beyond the immediate Portfolio and Program Management remit.

The successful candidate will have:

• Bachelor's degree in scientific, business, engineering, or related feel with 15+ years of biotechnology or pharmaceutical industry experience with increasing responsibility in portfolio strategy, program management, program leadership, or R&D leadership.
• Demonstrated senior leadership experience in portfolio management, program leadership, or a closely related discipline.
• Deep understanding of the end-to-end drug development process and the cross-functional interdependencies required to advance complex programs from early clinical development toward later-stage development and commercialization.
• Track record of leading programs through clinical development, including late-stage or commercialization experience.
• Proven success leading cross-functional teams and portfolio processes in a growing biotechnology or pharmaceutical organization.
• Demonstrated ability to translate strategy, data, risks, and competing functional inputs into integrated plans, clear choices, and decision-ready recommendations.
• Demonstrated strength in portfolio prioritization, risk management, scenario planning, governance, resource planning, and organizational change.
• Exceptional leadership and coaching capability, with experience building and developing high-performing program and project management talent.
• Strong executive presence and communication skills, including the ability to influence without authority, build trust, challenge constructively, and align stakeholders across organizational levels.
• Ability to move effectively between enterprise-level strategic questions and detailed program execution.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Advanced degree in life sciences, medicine, business, or a related discipline, such as a PhD, PharmD, MD, or MBA.
• Experience scaling a Portfolio and Program Management function within a growth-stage biotechnology company.
• Experience helping an organization progress from early clinical development toward later-stage development and commercialization readiness.
• Experience building or materially expanding a Portfolio and Program Management operating model, including governance frameworks and enterprise portfolio reporting.
• Proficiency with modern portfolio and program management tools and development of practical, executive-level portfolio dashboards.

Physical Requirements:

• Ability to perform the essential functions of an office-based leadership role, including participation in in-person and virtual meetings, with or without reasonable accommodation.
• Ability to travel periodically between company locations and to external business meetings as needed.
• Ability to work evenings, holidays, and weekends as needed.
• The ideal candidate will be able to work onsite based out of our Seattle, WA office at least 2 days/week.

Salary Range: $293,000 - $362,000