Head Key Account Management and Wholesale (d/f/m)

Workplace: Rotkreuz, Switzerland until 31 December 2027; Basel, Switzerland as of 01 January 2028. 

Sandoz continues to go through an exciting and transformative period as a global leader and pioneering provider of sustainable Biosimilar and Generic medicines. As we continue down this new and ambitious path, unique opportunities will present themselves, both professionally and personally. Join us, the future is ours to shape! 

The Head Key Account Management & Wholesale leads a strategically critical commercial business area within Sandoz Switzerland. As a member of the BU Retail Leadership Team, this role drives sustainable growth, strategic customer partnerships, market leadership and enterprise-wide value creation across key accounts, pharmacy chains, physicians and wholesale channels. The successful candidate will shape the future of Sandoz Retail in Switzerland by combining strong commercial strategy, disciplined financial leadership, customer impact, people development and execution excellence within a complex matrix organization. 

Your Key Responsibilities: 

Your responsibilities include, but not limited to: 

Strategic Leadership  

• Define and execute the long-term growth strategy for Key Account Management & Wholesale, ensuring sustainable competitive advantage and market leadership in Switzerland. 

• Shape clear strategic priorities across pharmacy, physician, institutional and wholesale channels, aligned with the BU Retail strategy and enterprise objectives. 

• Design and implement strategies that promote profitable long-term business development across all commercial retail channels and wholesale. 

• Monitor market dynamics, regulatory developments, competitive moves, customer consolidation, partnership opportunities and emerging business models, and translate them into actionable business plans. 

• Strengthen strategic relationships with key customers and institutional accounts to secure a favourable and sustainable position for Sandoz. 

• Lead complex, high-value negotiations with clear accountability for business impact, governance, compliance and execution quality. 

• Identify and execute growth and collaboration opportunities that accelerate market leadership and strengthen existing partnerships. 

Commercial & Financial Excellence  

• Hold comprehensive P&L accountability for key accounts across pharmacy, physician and wholesale channels. 

• Deliver and grow topline sales in sell-out across primary care. 

• Deliver and grow sell-in across the wholesale channel. 

• Responsibly manage and allocate large commercial CVP budget, ensuring disciplined resource allocation and strong return on commercial investments. 

• Drive the right balance between growth, profitability, customer value creation, and investment effectiveness. 

• Lead forecasting, scenario planning, and risk-adjusted decision making to improve business resilience and execution discipline. 

• Set ambitious goals and translate them into clear priorities, measurable outcomes, and timely execution across teams and stakeholders. 

Customer & Market Leadership  

• Build and expand strategic partnerships with Switzerland's most important pharmacy, wholesale and healthcare organizations. 

• Advance Sandoz's position with institutional accounts through strong customer insight, value-based solutions, and disciplined account planning. 

• Represent Sandoz with credibility, commercial judgement, and executive presence in senior customer interactions. 

• Anticipate customer needs, market shifts and channel developments, and convert insights into concrete business opportunities

• Ensure strong alignment between customer strategy, portfolio priorities, supply requirements, and commercial investments. 

Strategic Risk & Opportunity Management  

• Identify commercial, financial, supply chain, regulatory and reputational risks early and implement clear mitigation plans. 

• Anticipate market disruptions, competitive threats, customer consolidation trends and potential business continuity issues.

• Drive supply resilience and business continuity for critical customer partnerships in close collaboration with relevant functions.

• Assess financial risks, contractual exposure and investment trade-offs with a clear view on short-term delivery and long-term value creation. 

• Evaluate strategic growth opportunities, partnerships and new business models, and translate them into executable recommendations. 

Leadership, Talent & Culture  

• Build, lead and develop a high-performing, agile and results-driven organisation with strong accountability and ownership. 

• Coach and develop future leaders, strengthen succession pipelines and build functional capabilities that create a competitive edge. 

• Foster a positive, inclusive and collaborative working culture that encourages trust, empowerment, creativity, learning and authentic expression. 

• Promote fairness, transparency and diverse representation, while inviting different perspectives and constructive challenge. 

• Create a culture of innovation, continuous improvement and disciplined execution by constructively questioning the status quo. 

• Enhance employee engagement and ensure alignment with the organisation's purpose, values and business priorities. 

Matrix Collaboration, Integrity & Compliance  

• Act as a senior leader within the Sandoz matrix organisation, ensuring strong alignment and consistency across strategy, operations and stakeholder groups. 

• Influence local, regional, and global stakeholders with clarity, business judgement and strong cross-functional collaboration. 

• Foster the Tone at the Top for ethical behavior, integrity, compliance standards and company policies. 

• Display the highest ethical standards and actively encourage a culture of integrity, transparency and compliant business conduct. 

• Ensure that strategic choices, customer negotiations, and commercial investments are executed with strong governance and accountability. 

What you’ll bring to the role: 

Essential and Desirable Requirements:  

• Minimum of 10 years of relevant commercial leadership experience, preferably including multi-functional, P&L management, regional or global role experience, OTC medicines and FMCG exposure. 

• Proven track record of managing large and complex commercial businesses with clear accountability for growth, profitability and investment effectiveness. 

• Strong commercial acumen with the ability to manage complex customer ecosystems, strategic partnerships, and high-value negotiations. 

• Demonstrated success in leading growth across different commercial channels and product portfolios, including OTC. 

• Experience in creating and executing complex strategic plans in a highly regulated healthcare environment. 

• Excellent understanding of financials, including P&L, accruals, balance sheet, capital investment, forecasting and supply chain implications. 

• At least second-line leadership responsibility for large teams in relevant sales and marketing positions. 

• Prior experience in above-country roles or strong exposure to regional and global stakeholder management. 

• Strong transformation management capabilities and ability to lead organisational change with pace and clarity. 

• Ability to influence senior internal and external stakeholders and communicate effectively across different audiences. 

• Outstanding leadership capabilities with a proven ability to build an inclusive, diverse and high-performing working environment.

• Analytical, result-oriented and committed to excellence, with strong resilience and the ability to manage ambiguity effectively. 

• Strategic and logical thinker with a hands-on management style and the ability to navigate complex relationships. 

• Highest standards of personal ethics, integrity and compliance mindset. 

• Fluent in German, French and English 

Why Sandoz? 

Sandoz is the global leader in Biosimilar and Generic medicines, a segment of the healthcare industry that delivers 80% of the world’s medicines at 30% of the cost, touching the lives of more than 1 billion people across 100+ countries! While we are proud of our achievements, we have an ambition to do more so that everyone can achieve the basic human right of good health. 

With investments in new development capabilities, production sites, new acquisitions, and partnerships, we have the opportunity to shape the future of Sandoz and help even more people gain access to low-cost, high-quality medicines, sustainably.  

Our momentum is powered by an open, collaborative culture driven by our talented and ambitious colleagues, who, in return for applying their skills, experience an agile and collegiate environment with impactful careers, where diversity of thought is welcomed and where personal growth is supported!  

Join us, help us make healthcare fairer and faster. 

Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion:  

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

Accessibility and accommodation  

Sandoz is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to all individuals. If, because of a medical condition or disability, you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the recruitment process, please send an e-mail to [email protected]  and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information. Please include the job requisition number in your message. 

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