Director, Community Investment, Health Equity

At AstraZeneca we turn ideas into life changing medicines. We are dedicated to transforming the future of healthcare by unlocking the power of what science can do for people, society and the planet. Working here means being entrepreneurial, thinking big and working together to make the seemingly impossible a reality.  

As Director, Global Community Investment, you will play a pivotal role in implementing our Health Equity strategy and developing programmes aligned with our disease area priorities that bridge healthcare gaps for underserved patients, promote healthier behaviours, enable early disease detection and improve access to care.  

This role is critical in bringing to life how AstraZeneca is contributing to better, more equitable health outcomes for societies across the globe. This role requires a self-starter who is experienced in and engergised by public private partnerships and implementing high-quality community investment programmes through hands-on delivery at Global and country level. The ideal candidate will possess a strong background in public health, government affairs, healthcare policy, and strategic programme management, with a passion for advancing health equity within the pharmaceutical industry. 

Key responsibilities: 

• Young Health Programme (YHP): Lead the strategy, budget management and programme implementation of the YHP in diverse geographies, in line with AstraZeneca’s sustainability strategy. Lead collaboration with global and local NGO partners and AstraZeneca country teams to deliver against shared objectives. Ensure programme has Global senior leader sponsorship/support and long-term sustained financing. Lead the strategy for senior leader engagement, employee and YHP youth-advocate engagement, including One Young World, Youth Assembly and Girls Belong Here. Lead the communications strategy to elevate YHP internally and externally through coordinated multi‑channel communications. Lead development of strong evidence generation frameworks including country and programme partner adoption of outcome-focused impact metrics. 

• Community Investment (CI): Lead development and delivery of CI policies and reporting frameworks, in line with business needs. Collaborate with internal stakeholders to ensure robust understanding of CI policies across the organisation worldwide and that any risks to the organisation are minimised. Lead global CI reporting, impact measurement and data assurance. Oversee YHP and CI partnership agreements, grant processing, governance and finance workflows, ensuring compliant anc accurate documentation is maintained. Act as a Centre of Excellence on CSR and community issues in AstraZeneca’s focus areas and apply insights to strengthen Global Health Equity strategy and delivery. 

• Disaster relief and donations: Oversee  donation strategy including NGO partnerships. Lead collaboration with internal cross-functional teams to reach underserved patients with donations where there is an identified need, ensuring alignment to policies. Ensure markets receive rapid, compliant support during humanitarian emergencies and enable timely assistance to impacted communities, where appropriate, through financial support and product donations to NGOs.Your ability to establish strong, trusted partnerships with a variety of external and internal stakeholders and manage competing priorities, often to tight and competing deadlines, will be key to success. You will have knowledge of how health systems work and how healthcare is delivered, and will be excited to apply your insights to the role. Your passion, proactivity, entrepreneurial mindset and proven ability to deliver high quality partnership programmes and impactful, measurable delivery will help us to achieve key goals.  

 
INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CUSTOMERS / CLIENTS 

Internal – some examples of internal contacts/customers are: 

Global Corporate Affairs including Global Policy, Advocacy and Health Equity and Corporate Communications 

Regional and in-market Corporate Affairs teams 

Sustainability, Compliance, Legal, HR, Supply, Security 

External – some examples of external contacts are: 

NGOs and philanthropic organisations 

Public health expert groups 

REQUIREMENTS:  

Qualifications: 

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in relevant field is required. 

Experience 

• Proven experience in the pharmaceutical or healthcare sector in an in-house or agency role with a focus on reducing health disparities, improving access to care, government engagement and/or health policies. 

• Understanding of healthcare systems, how to drive healthcare policy change at country level and experience of successful partnership projects realised across diverse markets. 

• Demonstrated knowledge of community investment guidelines, standards, and reporting requirements.    

Skills and competencies 

• Passion for advancing health equity and a deep commitment to reducing healthcare disparities. 

• Ability to analyse complex data and use insights to inform decision-making and programme development. 

• Eagerness and ability to collaborate with and mobilise different people and organisations; work effectively in a matrix organisation and ability to prioritise effectively. 

• Excellent written and verbal communications skills, backed by strong corporate & ESG communications, analytical and digital skills. 

• Self-starting, independent, entrepreneurial attitude – a smart risk-taker who thrives on new challenges and on seeing things through to completion. 

• Practical understanding of financial reporting and compliance requirements.  

• Management of budgets and external agency teams. 

• Understanding of application of corporate brand guidelines. 

• Experience and interest in establishing and supporting adherence to processes to ensure consistency in implementing of CI policies and practices.