Executive Director - Pharma R&D, AI CoE and Data Analytics, India Centre

At Roche you can show up as yourself, embraced for the unique qualities you bring. Our culture encourages personal expression, open dialogue, and genuine connections,  where you are valued, accepted and respected for who you are, allowing you to thrive both personally and professionally. This is how we aim to prevent, stop and cure diseases and ensure everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Join Roche, where every voice matters.

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The Position

About Roche Digital Technology (RDT) Roche Digital Technology (RDT) is where innovation meets purpose. As a global team at the heart of Roche, we are a community of business-minded technologists committed to helping shape tomorrow’s digital future of healthcare. Our mission is to power Roche through cutting-edge digital technologies, harnessing the potential of artificial intelligence, data, and scalable tech innovations. Driven by purpose and passion, we’re building a future where digital is a core strength across all of Roche, enabling smarter ways of working, unlocking human potential, and driving breakthroughs that truly matter for millions of patients around the world.

Role Summary

As the Head of the RDT Pharma R&D AI Center of Excellence (CoE) and Data Analytics, you assume a critical executive leadership role, serving as a vital AI thought leader and Strategic Partner to the RDT Pharma R&D Leadership Team and Business teams.

Rather than acting as a traditional “ivory tower” service provider, you will proactively shape the overall Pharma R&D AI and data strategy by delivering centralized core services alongside embedded, hands-on expert support. You are responsible for setting up the Hyderabad CoE, establishing the service offerings that will empower workflow teams to deliver compliant, zero-friction digital solutions and ensuring the scalable industrialization of Agentic AI capabilities Across the Pharma R&D domain.

Key Accountabilities

• CoE Strategy & Flexible Service Operationalization: Lead the establishment and operation of the R&D Agentic AI CoE. You will define and shape a flexible, hybrid operating model that balances centralized core services (such as governance, standards and infrastructure) with embedded support. You will have the flexibility to dial the capacity of this model up or down based on the specific demands of the workflow pods, ensuring your team provides both foundational guidance and active, hands-on collaboration exactly where it is needed most.
• Strategic Partnership & Capability Enablement: Act as an advisory partner to the workflow teams who retain ultimate responsibility for business process redesign, product development, business and technical requirements, KPI ownership (Cycle Time, Quality, Productivity) and value realization. Your CoE will drive technological change management and accelerate internal capability maturity through experience based pairing and knowledge transfer.
• Governance, Verification & Validation (V&V) and Quality Standards: Standardize Verification & Validation (V&V) frameworks, define the “definition of done” and automate traceability matrices to ensure predictability across high-risk use cases. Act as the primary authority for maintaining strict GxP standards and EU AI Act traceability integrating System Risk Assessments (SRRA) and Data Classification Reports into CoE templates.
• Core Platforms & Rapid Innovation: Provide foundational architecture and managed “sandbox” environments to accelerate the “proof of science” for new AI use cases. Oversee AI DevOps to rapidly prototype and validate CoE frameworks against real world needs. Act as an advisor on PHOps (token optimization for R&D workflows) and provide essential model upgrade guidance for the Domain.
• Agent Marketplace & Asset Management: Own and develop the integrated Agentic orchestration strategy, and AI agent registry. You will be responsible for synthesizing insights from workflow teams to maintain reusable metadata, agent models and data assets, ensuring cross-functional synergies and eliminating redundant “island solutions”.
• Data Interoperability & Responsible AI: Drive the strategy for data interoperability and data readiness, guiding the construction of domain-specific knowledge graphs and semantic layers necessary to provide agents with contextual horizons and explainable AI provenance.
• Talent, Community and Vendor Strategy: Recruit a top-tier team of AI experts and leaders. Own AI talent up…