Associate Director, Commercial Operations, Canada

Position Summary
Apellis is seeking an experienced and talented commercial leader for the role of Associate Director, Commercial Operations in Canada who will play a key role in the launch planning and commercialization of pegcetacoplan in GA. It is an excellent opportunity to make a significant impact, building and leading the Canadian organization for the first ophthalmic commercial launch at Apellis.
The urgent priorities for the Associate Director, Commercial Operations are to support the medical and sales teams with the correct infrastructure to execute commercial launch within the marketplace. This position will be responsible for leading and overseeing the Canadian Commercial Operations team at Apellis including Commercial Data & Analytics, Promotional Material Review, Promotional Program Management, and Field Operations & Analytics. This role requires strong compliant collaboration with multiple cross-functional partners to build systems and processes with correct business rules to track activity, sales, and performance of Canadian operations. A creative growth-mindset, a bias to action, focus on performance and deep cultural alignment with the Apellis values are essential for success in role.
This role will report to the General Manager, Canada and they will be a key member of cross-functional leadership team.
Key Responsibilities Include
Distribution and Patient Support Program:

• Design initiatives to support patient access and clinic efficiency initiatives
• Collaborate with internal marketing colleagues and Patient Support Program (PSP) partners to ensure correct metrics are being measured and optimized to deliver efficient patient access.
• Work with PSPs to implement compliant processes to deliver efficient patient access while managing and escalating issues quickly as needed
• Lead operational aspects of distribution and pharmacy networks including KPI tracking and reporting, forecasting and inventory tracking, risk management
• Develop and evolve pharmacy program strategy including terms, purchasing model and credit platform
• Keep abreast of changing healthcare landscape including monitoring of national and provincial policies (i.e., open vs closed etc.)

Commercial Infrastructure Analytics

• Develop and roll-out Incentive Compensation plan aligned to territories in conjunction with Human Resources, Compliance, Finance, and Sales for seamless execution at launch
• Work in conjunction with sales leader to assess business and make recommendations to effectively deploy resources throughout all provinces in Canada
• Implementing field force call planning, call reporting and customer segmentation and targeting tools for the field force including developing and maintain changes to field territory alignments
• Drive efficient and thoughtful stewardship of budget
• Oversee collection of field insights using sales data, primary research, and secondary research in Canada to inform the business on performance; use correct field-force analytics at the regional level to help sales and marketing teams make strategic decisions for long-term success.
• Oversee and guide PRC (Medical, Legal, Regulatory) process in Canada and leverage US infrastructure where possible.
• Guide design and rollout a Business Intelligence (BI) platform which includes KPI dashboards for all Commercial HQ and field teams; Expand user base to include KPI dashboards for other Apellis functions such as Medical, Finance, Technical Operations, HR, etc.
• Collaborate with marketing team to execute qualitative and quantitative market research to ensure seamless integration of insights to assess business performance.
• Collaborate with global teams on developing correct forecast assumptions for Canada and ensure correct expectations are set all the way down to the provincial level.
• Plan and lead the cross-functional Canada team through a mock launch exercise to identify gaps, redundancy or potential issues in order to address them prior to the commercial launch
• Oversee Fleet program in Canada while working closely with US business partners on proper set-up and

Education, Registration & Certification

• BS/BA degree required; MBA or other related graduate degree preferred

Experience

• Excellent strategic thinking capabilities with ability to synthesize large amounts of information and logically structure PowerPoint deliverables
• Solid understanding of commercial business and industry standard datasets – focus on brand marketing for HCP customers
• Managerial courage: ability to challenge/ persuade Driven, highly self-motivated, confident, high-energy, and bright individual
• Strong data/systems aptitude and ability to learn systems quickly
• Minimum 7 years relevant experience within a life sciences company or consulting firm supporting the healthcare industry
• Consulting background preferred
• Strong analytical and quantitative skill set, including advanced Excel modeling skills
• Excellent communication skills; able to create simplicity from complexity, expert narrative development/storytelling

Skills, Knowledge & Abilities

• Executive Presence – high comfort in delivering and defending analyses/ recommendations to executive management; proven ability to deliver succinct, effective messages both in verbal and written formats
• Independent – able to manage workload with limited guidance and support in prioritization; effective managing to expectations and ability to scope/prioritize work with relatively high independence
• Cross-Functional Collaboration and Project Management – able to collaborate effectively with various functional partners to probe/ask questions, gather required information for analysis and participate as a value-added cross-functional project or brand initiative team member/partner representing Commercial Operations
• High Analytical Horsepower – ability to source, manipulate, analyze using standard tools (Excel) to effectively present and defend analyses
• Deals Well with Ambiguity / Intensity – operates well in a fast-paced environment driven by requests and evolving needs; Sees patterns or connections between situations; can envision and articulate possibilities and likelihoods.
• Core Strategic Thinking – ability to absorb and logically structure information into analytical deliverable outputs with established / known frameworks and tools
• Market Research Knowledge / Experience – experience interpreting qualitative / quantitative market research to present actionable insights
• Strong Communications – both efficient and succinct in verbal and written communications/ deliverables; able to distill complex analyses into meaningful insights and conclusions for an executive audience
• Strong Project / Deliverable Management – ability to deliver moderately complex analytical investigations and cross-functional projects with limited guidance
• High Customer-Orientation – internal customers as a service partner to brand, field, medical, Market access + other functions
• Basic Information Variety - familiarity with incorporating qualitative and quantitative inputs into projects

Benefits And Perks
Competitive benefits package, including drug coverage, retirement plan contributions and employee stock purchasing plan program.
Company Background
Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a global biopharmaceutical company that combines courageous science and compassion to develop life-changing therapies for some of the most challenging diseases patients face. Our goal is to transform treatment for a broad range of debilitating diseases by controlling a part of the immune system known as the complement cascade. With nearly a dozen clinical and pre-clinical programs underway, we believe we have only begun to unlock the potential of targeting C3 across many serious diseases.
EEO Statement
Apellis is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state and local fair employment practices laws. Apellis strictly prohibits and does not tolerate discrimination against employees, applicants or any other covered persons because of race, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, sex (including pregnancy), gender (including gender nonconformity and status as a transgender or transsexual individual), age, physical or mental disability, citizenship, past, current or prospective service in the uniformed services, genetic information, marital status, AIDS/HIV status, smoker/nonsmoker, and occupational pneumoconiosis or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state or local law.
For San Francisco postings: Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
Other Duties
Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.