Associate Director - IT Project Manager Infrastructure (SAP/S4Hana)

Job Description Summary

Location: Barcelona, Spain ; #LI-Hybrid 12 days/month in office.

Relocation Support: This role is based in Barcelona, Spain. Novartis is unable to offer relocation support; please only apply if you are located in Spain.

Internal Job title: Associate Director - IT Project Manager, Real Estate Facilities Services

The Associate Director – Project Management is responsible for end to end delivery of complex, cross regional DDIT projects for REFS, ensuring predictable execution, strong governance, and tight alignment between Business, DDIT, Procurement, and external vendors.
This role acts as a senior delivery owner for high impact initiatives (e.g. SAP programs, security systems, digital workplace, capital projects enablement), driving delivery discipline, risk management, and stakeholder confidence across the REFS portfolio.

 

Job Description

Key responsibilities:

• End‑to‑End Project & Program Delivery: Own full lifecycle delivery of medium‑to‑large DDIT REFS projects, from demand intake to go‑live and operational handover; ensure projects are delivered on time, on scope, and on budget, with clear ownership and accountability; lead multi‑vendor delivery landscapes (system integrators, SaaS providers, security vendors, local implementation partners)

•  Governance, Planning & Control: Establish and enforce robust project governance aligned with DDIT standards (phase gates, tollgates, approvals, documentation); Own integrated project plans, dependencies, milestones, and critical path management; Actively manage risks, issues, and change requests, ensuring early escalation and mitigation

•  Stakeholder & Senior Leadership Management: Serve as primary interface between Business stakeholders and DDIT delivery teams; prepare clear, executive‑level status reporting, decision papers, and escalation summaries; drive alignment across global, regional, and local stakeholders with often‑conflicting priorities

• Vendor & Financial Management: Manage vendor performance against contractual milestones and deliverables, enforce early delay flagging, impact assessments, mitigation plans, and recovery actions; coordinate closely with Procurement on SOWs, contract extensions, and milestone alignment; control project financials, forecasts, and budget tracking

• Portfolio Contribution & Continuous Improvement: Contribute to project portfolio planning, prioritization, and capacity discussions; ensure lessons learned, retrospectives, and standards are consistently applied

Essential Requirements:

• 10+ years of experience in IT project / program management, preferably in enterprise or regulated environments

• Strong exposure to Real Estate, Facilities, Infrastructure, or Enterprise SaaS implementations, SAP/S4Hana (e.g. ERP, IWMS, ServiceNow, security systems)

• Proven execution excellence capabilities, with deep expertise in project & program management methodologies (Waterfall, Agile, hybrid), with strong planning, dependency management, and critical‑path thinking skills

• Senior‑level project leadership in complex, matrix organizations, with strong decision‑making under ambiguity and delivery pressure, and ability to enforce standards without damaging stakeholder relationships

• Experience working in a global, multi-country delivery context, with proven experience managing large, interdependent delivery plans

• Demonstrated experience managing external vendors and complex contracts

• Excellent concise, executive‑ready communication skills, with fluency in English, with ability to translate complex technical and delivery topics into business impact

Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion:

Novartis is committed to building an outstanding, inclusive work environment and diverse teams representative of the patients and communities we serve.

Why Novartis: Helping people with disease and their families takes more than innovative science. It takes a community of smart, passionate people like you. Collaborating, supporting and inspiring each other. Combining to achieve breakthroughs that change patients’ lives. Ready to create a brighter future together? https://www.novartis.com/about/strategy/people-and-culture

Join our Novartis Network: Not the right Novartis role for you? Sign up to our talent community to stay connected and learn about suitable career opportunities as soon as they come up: https://talentnetwork.novartis.com/network

Benefits and Rewards: Read our handbook to learn about all the ways we’ll help you thrive personally and professionally: https://www.novartis.com/careers/benefits-rewards

 

Skills Desired

Change Management, Communication, Decision Making Skills, Leadership, Negotiation, Operational Excellence Projects, Problem Solving, Project Finance, Project Management, Project Planning, Project Risk Management, Project Team Management, Stakeholder Engagement, Strategy Development