Chief Technology Officer — Commercial Launch Organisation

The mandate

A pharmaceutical enterprise is approaching its first launch with commercial technologies assembled from pilots, regional tools and vendor demonstrations. Customer identity, consent, content, field, ordering and patient-service systems each progress, but their interfaces and operating ownership are incomplete. The current CTO is departing. An urgent replacement must make launch architecture executable before country teams create permanent workarounds.

Approximately 1,150 employees and material partners depend on commercial, medical, market access, customer, patient and enterprise technology from Dublin across international markets. The CTO owns architecture, engineering, integration, reliability, development operations, technical security and vendors, reporting to the Group Chief Executive or nominated sponsor. Medical, regulatory, privacy and safety functions retain authorised decisions.

The target architecture will begin with actors and permitted journeys. Healthcare professionals, payers, patients, partners and employees have different identities, permissions and needs. The CTO will establish mastered identifiers, role context and consent so systems do not create duplicate profiles or reuse data beyond purpose.

Content is a regulated technical object. Approved material needs source, version, audience, market, channel and expiry. The platform should prevent superseded content from distribution and prove withdrawal. Local adaptation must remain connected to the approved core and review history.

Commercial and medical interactions require boundary-aware systems. Customer relationship tools must distinguish purpose, role and permitted follow-up without forcing inappropriate sharing. The CTO will ensure architecture supports medical independence, adverse-event intake and privacy while still allowing authorised teams a coherent relationship view.

Patient services introduce sensitive workflows. Eligibility, enrolment, consent, support, safety and vendor hand-offs must be traceable. The platform will collect minimum data and separate programme operations from promotional use. A seamless interface cannot obscure who is responsible for each patient action.

Market integrations vary. Distribution, payer, digital and provider systems use different standards and timetables. The CTO will define reusable services with controlled local adapters, monitoring and replay. A technically accepted transaction must still be checked for business and regulatory completeness.

Launch reliability requires scenario engineering. Identity failure, consent outage, content withdrawal, vendor unavailability and cyber containment should have tested degradation and recovery. The business needs to know which activity pauses, which continues manually and how records reconcile.

Security will be designed around high-value data and launch threat. Privileged access, third-party connectivity, secrets and development environments need control. Agency and vendor engineers should receive minimum, time-bound access. Speed cannot justify production data in uncontrolled test environments.

Release governance should enable pace without losing evidence. Changes affecting regulated content, consent, safety or patient work require risk assessment, user acceptance, monitoring and rollback. The CTO will build automated technical controls while ensuring authorised humans make regulated decisions.

Build-versus-buy will include lifecycle and exit. Vendor platforms may accelerate launch, but contracts need portability, interface rights, service evidence and termination. Internally built components need product ownership beyond the launch team. Technical debt incurred deliberately will have an expiry plan.

The engineering roadmap will follow launch dependencies, not stakeholder visibility. The CTO will identify critical path, remove overlapping pilots and reserve capacity for defects and country readiness. Features that cannot be adopted or supported at launch will move out of scope.

Architecture and operational knowledge must transfer from the outgoing CTO and vendors. Decision records, runbooks, ownership and succession will be tested through independent operation. The new leader will build a permanent engineering team capable of challenging suppliers and supporting market scale.

What you will own

• Commercial-launch architecture and engineering.
• Customer identity, consent and permitted-use services.
• Approved content lifecycle and channel control.
• Medical-commercial and patient-service boundaries.
• Market integration, reliability and reconciliation.
• Security, release and development operations.
• Vendor, build-versus-buy and technical debt.
• Engineering leadership and succession.

The first 12 months

Within 30 days, map launch journeys, identify uncontrolled identity, content or consent dependencies and complete critical incumbent handover. Freeze pilots that cannot support the target architecture.

By month five, release common identity and content services, validate patient-programme integration and run full failure scenarios. Complete country adapter readiness.

At twelve months, achieve 99.95% availability for launch-critical journeys, 100% traceability for approved content and consent changes and zero unreconciled high-risk transaction after recovery. Remove 30% of overlapping pilots, with every first-wave market passing architecture, security and operating-readiness gates before activation.

What the sponsor will examine

• Identity and permission differing by actor and purpose.
• Superseded content becoming technically unavailable.
• Patient services showing accountable hand-offs.
• Market adapters validating complete transactions.
• Recovery reconciling regulated and customer records.
• Vendor knowledge transferred into internal capability.

The person

You bring 22–28 years in technology, including CTO or major-platform engineering authority in pharmaceuticals, healthcare or another regulated customer environment. Your record includes first launch, identity, consent, content, multi-market integration and high-availability operation.

Candidates should demonstrate an architecture decision that reduced country workarounds and a launch feature they removed to protect the critical path. Dublin is the permanent onsite base with international market and vendor engagement.

Compensation and terms

Base compensation is EUR 285,000–390,000 plus annual incentive and long-term participation tied to launch readiness, reliability, compliant architecture, security and leadership. This permanent executive operates onsite in Dublin and is accountable to the Group Chief Executive or named executive-committee sponsor. Replacement is urgent before launch cut-over.

Confidentiality

The enterprise, assets, customers, patients, architecture, vendors, security and launch plans remain confidential. Further detail follows conflicts and signed confidentiality. Applicants must not contact pharmaceutical companies or suppliers to infer the client.