Head of R&D Product Delivery and Deployment in Surrey

About the role Haleon’s Innovation Transformation, combined with site modernization and the run portfolio, represents a major long‑term investment exceeding £50M, with projected annualized benefits of over £100M. The scale and complexity of this transformation demand a highly coordinated, multi‑year delivery engine. Reporting to the Head of R&D Tech, this senior leadership role is accountable for the end‑to‑end orchestration of technology delivery across all R&D product pillars. Acting as the central control tower for the Innovation value pool, the role integrates all HDS initiatives—managing risks, dependencies, sequencing, execution, value realization, and service‑transition coherence. It ensures enterprise strategy is translated into a unified delivery plan that lands effectively with the business, emphasizing change leadership, adoption, readiness, and seamless transition to Level 2 support. Success requires deep expertise in R&D, innovation, GxP, and regulatory expectations to guide delivery decisions with scientific and compliance rigor. The role owns the integrated delivery engine for R&D Tech, consolidating value, KPIs, risks, and timelines into a single leadership lens. It partners closely with the D&T Portfolio and Performance team to maintain an always‑integrated, enterprise‑wide HDS plan. GxP, validation, and audit knowledge are leveraged to shape delivery approaches and ensure full compliance across the lifecycle.

Role Responsibilities

• Strategic Stakeholder Influence and governance: This role involves actively engaging with senior leaders globally, including members of the executive team, RDLT members, Global and OU categories and D&T Senior Leaders to drive strategic orchestration of digital delivery for R&D and innovation value pool. Represent R&D Tech in senior governance bodies, including the Haleon Digital Strategy PMO, Transformation Office, R&D Wired for Excellence forums, and global D&T governance committees. Ensure high‑quality reporting, decision support, and escalation management across the portfolio.
• Strategic Digital R&D Delivery Leadership: Translate R&D and Digital strategies into integrated, actionable delivery plans with clear outcomes, dependencies, and value measures. Lead end‑to‑end delivery orchestration across multiple product lines and programs, ensuring alignment with business priorities and enterprise transformation journeys. Own the refreshing and continuous optimization of the R&D Tech delivery roadmap. Integrate delivery across all R&D product pillars, providing orchestration, dependency management, and execution alignment, acting as Value Pool control tower overseeing cross‑portfolio risks, issues, sequencing challenges, and decision enablement.
• Innovation and R&D acumen, Business Process Transformation, digitization, Technology consulting, and Value Realization: The role requires partnership with Global R&D, QSC, and marketing Leaders to undertake significant transformation of end‑to‑end innovation business processes and value realization via digital, data and AI‑enabled use cases in the long‑run commercial processes to the conclusion of value realization in the long run. The role holder should be a credible influence in this area, with deep R&D and innovation experience to ensure industry’s best practices and outside‑in‑depth perspective are constantly scanned and applied. Partnering with Senior product owners, configuration experts, architects and third‑party providers, role ensures technology, vendor and delivery choices are made in line with D&T Strategy and there is a balance and understanding of tradeoffs between cost, quality and pace.
• Matrix Team Leadership and contract ecosystem management: The role will be one of the key accountable senior leaders within the cross‑functional innovation ecosystem leadership team having direct and indirect oversight of 100s of resources jointly working on delivering Innovation value pool’s defined scope. The role will need to provide strong leadership and guidance to cross‑functional teams to create a high‑performance culture and takes ownership of critical decisions and provides clear direction, actively leading problem‑solving discussions across boundaries. Lead vendor negotiations, matrixed resourcing, and contract management across a multi‑partner ecosystem.
• Operational: Ensures incorporation of data literacy thought leadership, change management principles, business readiness, training, and adoption activities to ensure new capabilities land successfully within the business. Ensure smooth transition of capabilities into Level 2 support with clear ownership, SLAs, and stabilization tracking.

Basic Qualifications

• Technical Product & Domain Expertise: Deep domain expertise in delivering innovation and R&D programs in validated environment, including broad knowledgebase of R&D application landscape including Veeva Vault (Clinical, Regulatory, Safety) across configuration, data models, workflows, Formulations, and integrations. Strong understanding of Accolade and comparable PPM platforms. Broad knowledge of Clinical, Regulatory, Safety, and Research Lab processes within consumer health and life sciences. Skilled in integration technologies, APIs, middleware, master data, and enterprise data flows. Solid grounding in GxP, CSV, data integrity, and regulatory compliance.
• Data and AI Literacy / Fluency: The role will provide delivery oversight for mix of innovation and R&D priorities which includes multitude of data and AI products and mix of traditional SaaS system workflow combined with data foundation, digitization and unique insights product. The head of R&D Product delivery leads and coordinates strategic planning and priority settings based on value. The role holder will be expected to understand and credibly influence the development of these platforms for the benefit of the business.
• Leadership & Technical Delivery: Proven track record leading large‑scale COTS implementations and multi‑system transformation programs including data foundations and data / AI use cases. Experience managing global, cross‑functional teams and external partners. Strong decision‑maker with mature prioritization and risk‑management capabilities. An experienced strategic Technology lead with a proven track record of navigating large, complex, global organisations. Experience in a global programme environment, including large scale technology deployments. Experience with Haleon’s Agile and Waterfall methodologies.

Preferred Qualifications

• Analytical & Strategic Thinking: Ability to convert complex business needs into scalable, sustainable technology designs. Strong problem‑solver focused on simplification, usability, and value. Innovative mindset with a willingness to challenge the status quo.
• Communication & Collaboration: Excellent communicator and storyteller for both technical and non‑technical audiences. Effective relationship‑builder across R&D, Regulatory, Safety, and Digital & Tech teams. Adept at influencing senior stakeholders and aligning delivery across functions. Strong stakeholder engagement skills, comfortable with a range of technology platforms, suppliers and how these integrate with the business.

Equal Opportunities

Haleon are committed to mobilising our purpose in a way that represents the diverse consumers and communities who rely on our brands every day. It guides us in creating an inclusive culture, where different backgrounds and views are valued and respected – all in support of understanding and best serving the needs of our consumers and unleashing the full potential of our people. It’s important to us that Haleon is a place where all our employees feel they truly belong. During the application process, we may ask you to share some personal information, which is entirely voluntary. This information ensures we meet certain regulatory and reporting obligations and supports the development, refinement, and execution of our inclusion and belonging programmes that are open to all Haleon employees. The personal information you provide will be kept confidential, used only for legitimate business purposes, and will never be used in making any employment decisions, including hiring decisions.