General Summary:
This role leads a team responsible for the architecture, delivery, security, support, and continuous evolution of enterprise laboratory technology platforms across LC1/2, Vertex's Cell & Gene Therapy (CGT) site. It is also the single accountable Research Site Partner for LC1/2: the primary DTE relationship holder for the site leadership, and the front door through which site requirements are captured, shaped, and routed into the correct cross-functional platform backlog.
Operating within highly regulated GxP and SOX environments, this role remains accountable for operational excellence, financial stewardship, and risk management across a complex laboratory technology landscape, including ownership of the site's annual operating budget. In parallel, the role carries accountability for local technology adoption, change management, and cross-site prioritization advocacy — ensuring LC1/2's voice shapes the shared platform roadmap without the site building or maintaining local one-off solutions.
Key Duties and Responsibilities:
Technology & Operations Leadership
- Build and sustain strong, trust-based relationships with senior business, quality, and DTE leaders, acting as a strategic partner with sustained impact on enterprise laboratory goals.
- Lead, develop, and retain a highly effective Lab Engineering Support organization, leveraging internal resources and external partners through a managed service provider model.
- Ensure stable, secure, and compliant laboratory technology operations across both IT and OT environments, aligned to cyber security, ITSM, ITIL, and DTE system lifecycle standards.
- Serve as the primary point of accountability for laboratory technology operating within GxP- and SOX-regulated environments, partnering with DTE Compliance, Cyber Security, Internal Audit, and Quality Assurance.
- Own and manage the site's operating budget, ensuring disciplined financial planning, forecasting, vendor management, and value realization across services and platforms.
- Oversee a portfolio of programs, projects, platform releases, and enhancements delivered at the site, ensuring quality, timeliness, and alignment with business outcomes.
- Lead technology-driven modernization of the laboratory environment — intelligent automation, agentic workflows, passive data capture, IoT-enabled instruments, and connected lab environments — translating innovation into pragmatic, compliant roadmaps.
- Attract, develop, and retain top talent; carry full people-management accountability for assigned staff.
Site Partnership
- Serve as the single accountable owner for technology adoption, change, and the DTE relationship at LC1/2 — the primary partner to the site leadership.
- Engage directly with Cell & Gene Therapy leadership, translating CGT modality context into technology requirements without relying on an intermediary domain translator. CGT-specific regulatory and quality compliance is owned by the platform/quality teams, not this role.
- Act as the site's product owner: capture requirements and user stories directly from scientists and shape raw, ambiguous input into clear, prioritized demand.
- Be the single front door for LC1/2 — route shaped requirements to the correct platform owner (within Laboratory Solutions or peer DTE platform organizations) rather than site stakeholders engaging each platform team directly.
- Drive local adoption and change management for new platform capabilities; carry roadmap and delivery updates back to site scientists and leadership on a regular cadence.
- Represent the site's voice in cross-site, cross-functional prioritization forums, ensuring the shared platform roadmap reflects the site's highest-value needs.
- Maintain a transparent, current view of the site's demand status and backlog position that site stakeholders can see and understand.
Knowledge and Skills:
- Strong senior-level business engagement and stakeholder partnership capabilities.
- Working fluency in CGT modality concepts sufficient to be seen as credible by research leadership and scientists, not just by technology stakeholders.
- Deep understanding of enterprise technology operations, cyber security, ITSM, and system lifecycle practices.
- Proven people leadership experience building and sustaining high-performing teams.
- Program, portfolio, demand, and financial management expertise.
- Excellent analytical, problem-solving, communication, and executive-level presentation skills.
- Ability to balance operational stability with innovation in regulated environments.
- Comfort operating in a matrixed accountability model — shaping and routing demand where the build/architecture decision rests with a peer platform owner, not this role.
- Preferred, not required: experience with Benchling and fit-for-purpose analytics/visualization software — a strong addition to the candidate profile but not mandatory.
Education and Experience:
- Bachelor's degree in technology discipline or equivalent
- 10+ years of relevant experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
- 3+ years of experience in the Cell & Gene Therapy space — general modality fluency is sufficient; deep hands-on process/manufacturing experience is not required.
- Demonstrated leadership managing enterprise-scale technology platforms and support organizations.
- Proven experience operating within GxP- and SOX-regulated environments.
- Experience leading complex programs, portfolios, and vendor ecosystems with financial accountability.
- Experience operating as a product owner, business relationship manager, or similar demand-shaping role — translating ambiguous stakeholder input into structured, prioritized backlog items.
