Director, EA & Head of Executive Office

Do you thrive at the intersection of strategic leadership, driving operational excellence and people development? Are you a proactive, diplomatic and well-established leader who can partner with senior executives and lead a high-performing support and project team in an international environment? If so, join us as Director, EA & Head of Executive Office to the SVP of Global Trial Portfolio (GTP) in R&D.
  
The position
As Director, EA & Head of Executive Office, you will play a pivot role in partnering with leadership teams across the SVP area called Global Trial Portfolio (GTP), anchored in the Research & Development organisation. You will be supporting the ambition and transformation of the area to effectively translate and drive strategic priorities across GTP. The Director acts as a trusted partner to the GTP leadership team (LT) in driving the overall strategy for the GTP area and especially being the daily strategic sparrings partner for the SVP, ensuring analytical insights, driving strategic processes and projects that enable decision making and actionable recommendations for the SVP.   

Alongside, you will be heading up the Executive office consisting of app. 8 skilled and professional Project Managers and Department Assistants who all support the SVP area.   

Your key responsibilities will include:

• Be pro-active in the planning of SVP activities and prioritisation and take part in the strategic development of GTP
• In collaboration with the GTP Leadership Team, initiate and scope key strategic projects across GTP or R&D
• In collaboration with the SVP Comms Partner, prepare content and material for meetings (internal and external), dialogues, conferences, etc for SVP.
• Lead and develop the Executive Office, making sure of individual engagement and development
• Build a strong project and administrative support team to support SVP and line of business
• Drive GTP LT meeting agendas and execution and ensuring structure and proactiveness around all aspects of GTP LT activities
• Ensure structure around organization and resource management, including line and FTE budget oversight
  Drive BRM meetings with business areas with a focus on business performance, resource allocation, budget, and people (D&I)
• Plan and facilitate communication in close collaboration with the communication partner

Daily, you collaborate closely with PA to SVP, HR Business Partner and all the main stakeholders including senior Management teams in several EVP/SVP areas, SVP support team as well as Development Governance teams and EAs across the Development EVP area. You will also get involved in strategic and business development projects across the organization.

The position is based in Søborg in Greater Copenhagen, Denmark but the role operates globally and may require some traveling. 

Qualifications 
To thrive and succeed in this role, we expect you to have:

• Master’s degree with a robust business acumen
• In-depth experience and understanding of global product development preferably documented through experience in several business areas in the pharmaceutical industry
• Solid leadership experience from direct line management in a complex environment   
• Strong analytical skills and excellent stakeholder engagement and management skills
• The capacity to lead by example and possess informal leadership experience
• Fluency in English (both written and spoken)

 
On a personal level, you possess a proactive, structured and systematic mindset, enabling you to manage a variety of tasks and commitments combined with strong drive and a goal-oriented style. You excel in dynamic environments with shifting priorities. You demonstrate a keen sense of diplomacy while maintaining assertiveness and fostering team spirit. Your curiosity drives your commitment across all levels of the organization.

 
About the department:
The position as Director EA is based in the Global Trial Portfolio SVP area. The vision for this area is to drive operational excellence and innovation in the execution of our clinical trial portfolio across all clinical development phases and therapy areas within the Novo Nordisk pipeline. Taking offset in a position of strength, we have a clear ambition of being industry leading across all operational aspects of our clinical trial portfolio by focusing on timely, cost-efficient, best-in-class clinical trial planning and execution in collaboration with our many internal and external stakeholders.

The Global Trial Portfolio organization is comprised of teams focusing on clinical operations, data management and programming, process transformation and trial portfolio performance management. All areas are collaborating closely, especially with colleagues across the Novo Nordisk Clinical Medical and Regulatory (CMR) organisation and with several other areas in Development, to progress the clinical trial portfolio.
 

Contact 
For further information, reach out to Per Hessen-Schmidt, SVP HRBP Global Trial Portfolio at +4530793954.
 
Deadline
23. November 2025

 
Kindly note that applications will be reviewed continuously, and interviews conducted on a rolling basis. Please refrain from adding a photo to your CV to ensure fair and efficient processing.
By submitting your application for this position, you acknowledge and agree that your CV and application materials may be accessible and viewed by relevant managers within our organization for the purpose of evaluating your candidacy.

We commit to an inclusive recruitment process and equality of opportunity for all our job applicants. 

 Working at Novo Nordisk

We’re not your typical healthcare company. In a modern world of quick fixes, we focus on solutions to defeat serious chronic diseases and promote long-term health. Our unordinary mindset is at the heart of everything we do. We seek out new ideas and put people first as we push the boundaries of science, make healthcare more accessible, and treat, prevent, and even cure diseases that affect millions of lives. Because it takes an unordinary approach to drive real, lasting change in health.