Roche Diagnostics Türkiye Head of External Affairs & Communications

At Roche you can show up as yourself, embraced for the unique qualities you bring. Our culture encourages personal expression, open dialogue, and genuine connections,  where you are valued, accepted and respected for who you are, allowing you to thrive both personally and professionally. This is how we aim to prevent, stop and cure diseases and ensure everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Join Roche, where every voice matters.

The Position

Based in Turkey and reporting to the General Manager Türkiye and Head of MC Central Asia and Caucasia, you will be a key member of the Turkey Leadership Team.

Beyond your core responsibilities, you will be jointly accountable for affiliate transformation, fostering an environment of trust, transparency, and patient-centricity that inspires teams to grow, adapt, and excel in a fast-changing market. In this role, you will lead and oversee External Affairs, Market Access, and Corporate Communications across the affiliate. You will drive strategic public affairs, government relations, and external communication activities, ensuring that healthcare policies, stakeholder engagement, and market access strategies are effectively implemented, aligned with organizational strategy, and continuously improved to maximize patient access.

A natural leader and coach with a strong entrepreneurial and enterprise mindset, you will architect an environment that enables growth, fast decision-making, and cross-functional collaboration in a complex and volatile landscape. You will thrive in a fast-paced, high-performing organization, empowering your team to reach ambitious targets while partnering with peers to deliver overarching business goals. Acting as a central integrator across functions, you will ensure alignment with global and regional strategies, manage external stakeholders and legal partners, oversee contract and litigation processes, drive risk assessment, support audits, and coordinate with authorities and institutions.

What’s expected from you could be categorized as:

VACC Leadership

• As a visionary, connect the enterprise vision to people within the affiliate

• As an architect, formulate a strategy to reach our enterprise ambition and ensure affiliate architecture would be enabling factors to achieve those outcomes

• As a catalyst, remove roadblocks, encourage smart-risking taking, experimentation, and rapid learning

•  As a coach, empower people to take business decisions

Accountabilities

Strategic Government Relations & Public Policy

• Drive and lead robust government relations across the entire healthcare ecosystem, establishing a strong network and influence within key decision-making bodies

• Act as the strategic liaison to navigate complex local reimbursement, pricing, and policy-shaping processes by effectively engaging with key decision-makers, policymakers, regulatory authorities, and governmental economic committees

• Formulate and execute high-impact public affairs strategies to influence the adoption of international diagnostic standards, guidelines, and healthcare economics policies at the highest levels of state administration and policymaking

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Market Access & Healthcare Policy

• Map, engage, and manage high-level stakeholders to shape the policy and access environment while driving market access strategies for diagnostic solutions.

• Act as the key interface for Diagnostics and Pharma affiliates to co-create joint access programs, stakeholder mapping, policy shaping, and reimbursement activities.

• Lead and coordinate overall market access processes, planning, and budgeting to support health system transformation and improve patient outcomes.

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Government Affairs & Public Affairs

• Lead innovative and digital strategies to engage key healthcare decision-makers and influencers across the entire ecosystem.

• Enable team members to influence the adoption of local or international guidelines and best practices through active participation in expert groups and advisory boards.

• Lead public affairs processes and streamline stakeholder management in close collaboration with both internal and external partners.

External Communication & Stakeholder Management

• Develop and maintain trusted business relationships with key external leaders, influencers, and leading healthcare institutions to increase awareness of the company's value proposition.

• Take end-to-end ownership of customer communications and ensure strong, consistent stakeholder management across the entire team.

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Abilities/Skills

• Identify and manage complexity through the ability to quickly understand and analyze facts, situations, and shifting healthcare policies

• High level of networking skills, political acumen, and diplomacy to effectively engage with top-tier technocrats and state administration officials

• Strong influence, negotiation, and alignment skills to manage diverse public reimbursement and governmental authorities

• Ability to translate complex health economics and clinical value data into compelling, high-level business cases

• Strategic thinker with the capacity to accurately map key opinion leaders, policy influencers, and critical decision-making nodes

• Ability to anticipate market access risks and proactively adapt strategic plans in a volatile regulatory environment

• Strong collaboration skills to orchestrate cross-functional teams across Access, Medical, and Commercial divisions

• Ability to leverage digital platforms and innovative engagement models to drive modern public advocacy

• High level of ownership, accountability, and resilience in a fast-paced environment

 Experience

• University degree, preferably in Life Sciences, Health Economics, Public Administration, Business, or a related field (Master’s or PhD in Health Economics or Public Policy is a plus)

• Minimum of 10 years of progressive experience in Market Access, Government Affairs, and Public Policy, preferably in the medical device, diagnostics, or pharmaceutical industries

• Proven track record of managing complex reimbursement, pricing, and healthcare policy-shaping processes in Turkey

• Extensive, pre-existing professional network and demonstrated influence within key decision-making bodies, including the Ministry of Health and public reimbursement authorities

• In-depth knowledge of healthcare economics, local regulatory frameworks, and market access pathways in Turkey

• Deep understanding of the Turkish healthcare ecosystem, state administration, and institutional culture

• High level of strategic agility, diplomatic acumen, and ethical professional standards

• Fluent in written and oral English

Who we are

A healthier future drives us to innovate. Together, more than 100’000 employees across the globe are dedicated to advance science, ensuring everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Our efforts result in more than 26 million people treated with our medicines and over 30 billion tests conducted using our Diagnostics products. We empower each other to explore new possibilities, foster creativity, and keep our ambitions high, so we can deliver life-changing healthcare solutions that make a global impact.

Let’s build a healthier future, together.

Roche is an Equal Opportunity Employer.