Head of Established Brands - SPC

This is an exciting opportunity to have a key impact and directly contribute to the overall financial health and profitability of a large Specialty and Primary Care portfolio, being part of a lean structure where you drive best-in-class portfolio optimization and key business decisions. The Head of Established Brands works autonomously and is responsible for optimizing the portfolio, with Ebitda ratio versus Net Revenue being the main focus, by identifying and executing opportunities for rationalization, simplification and improved performance in collaboration with relevant stakeholders such as affiliates, industrial operations and corporate development.

The Established Brands portfolio is the core of our successful SPC business, comprising over 450 brands and delivering approximately 1B EUR gross sales, with top 10 markets representing approximately 85% of the total revenue. Whilst all markets have established brands in their portfolio, the mix and performance drivers vary significantly. Therefore, brands cannot be uniformly classified by archetype or band performance, highlighting the importance of strong, collaborative relationships with individual markets to challenge and support the different approaches to their local portfolios.

Key Responsibilities

• SKU rationalization: systematically assess performance (contribution, margin, cost, strategic fit) per SKU and provide recommendations for discontinuation based on aligned criteria.
• Simplification: in collaboration with the markets and Industrial Operations, optimize the Established Brand portfolio through reducing complexities such as multiple formulations or pack sizes to improve manufacturing and supply chain efficiency.
• COGS improvement: explore, recommend, and execute relevant opportunities such as renegotiation of terms, change of supplier and internalizing or externalizing production in collaboration with industrial operations.
• Expansion and LCM: assess opportunities for geographic expansion of core assets within the territory including LCM initiatives to drive growth and/or profitability.
• Commercial Effectiveness Improvement: Identify opportunities for sales improvement in Established Brands, including local ‘growth’ brands that strategically fit and/or deliver higher margins.
• Ensure appropriate commercial strategies, including A&P allocation, optimized sales force promotional efforts, use of digital channels and new commercial frameworks.
• Lead the Established Brand Network; facilitate sharing of best practices, commercial strategies, promotional and educational materials and build digital capabilities for Established Brands that are promoted across multiple markets.
• Optimize Pricing & Access: collaborate with affiliates and HQ Pricing & Access team to ensure timely knowledge of local pricing events and appropriate strategies and responses aligned with company policy.
• Establish a Metric and Decision framework: define metrics such as revenue growth, margin improvement and MS evolution to evaluate and prioritize products and track impact of taken measures to ensure they achieve desired outcomes.

Other

• Internal alignment: ensure cross‑functional teams (commercial, regulatory, medical, supply chain) are aligned on and aware of portfolio management decisions.
• Alliance management: be the commercial point of contact in key partnerships on product, licence and API level and continuously scout for opportunities that may benefit our portfolio, including contract negotiations and JSC delivery.

Required Skills and Experience

Key Experience

• 10+ years in pharma industry, in both local and regional/global commercial roles.
• 3+ years managing/working with Gx and/or products post‑patent expiration.
• Hands‑on in portfolio optimisation, including P&L improvement and SKU rationalisation.
• Managing P&L, cost optimisation and revenue forecasting.
• Familiarity with strategic decision‑making in resource allocation across multiple brands.
• Proven ability to effectively work in matrix organisations and across diverse teams including commercial, industrial operations, regulatory, supply chain and finance on regional level.

Key Skills

• Strong analytical skills with high level of accuracy and ability to analyse market data, evaluate product performance and identify opportunities for optimisation and/or growth.
• Ability to navigate complex organisational structures and align diverse teams.
• Strong project management skills to oversee initiatives like product rationalisation of market expansion, involving relevant stakeholders and deliver according plan.
• Proficiency in streamlining processes, reducing costs and ensuring supply chain efficiency for established brands portfolio.
• Ability to thrive in a dynamic environment with shifting conditions and priorities, bringing strong problem‑solving skills to address unexpected challenges and hurdles.

Required Behaviours And Competencies

• Business acumen & Analytical thinking
• Curiosity & Challenging the status quo
• Resilience & Adaptability
• Problem‑solving & Perseverance
• Collaboration and Communication

Required Languages

• Fluency in English is required; knowledge of any additional language will be considered a plus.

Travel required in %

This role can be based anywhere in Europe. However, it requires high mobility, with regular travel (>30% of the time) to our Headquarters in Milan and other EU affiliates.

Equal Opportunity Information

We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We recruit, develop and reward without regard to, amongst others, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, physical or mental ability, race, ethnicity, political or religious belief.