R&D Program Leader

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## Position details

## Vacancy
Vacancy referenceVAC-0427Job titleR&D Program LeaderDepartmentR&D ProgramsLocationOslo / London / Washington DCClose date1/11/2026
## Job description
About CEPI
Launched in 2017, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) is an international coalition of governments, academic, philanthropic, private, public, and intergovernmental institutions whose vision is to create a world in which epidemics and pandemics are no longer a threat to humanity. Our mission is to accelerate the development of vaccines and other biologic countermeasures against epidemic and pandemic threats so they can be accessible to all people in need. CEPI played a central role in the global response to COVID-19, creating the world’s largest portfolio of COVID-19 vaccines – seven of which are approved for global or domestic use - and co-leading COVAX, the global initiative to support equitable access which supported the delivery of over 2bn vaccine doses globally. CEPI has contributed to a number of scientific breakthroughs in vaccine development against other infectious diseases, including the first ever licensed Chikungunya vaccine and the first Nipah and Lassa virus vaccines into Phase 1 trials.

As COVID-19 has demonstrated, emerging infectious diseases represent an existential threat to our way of life. COVID-19 is not the first pandemic of the 21st century, and unless we act now, we can be sure that it will not be the last. Unlike some of the other big threats that humanity faces, we have the tools to systematically reduce and even eliminate the risk of future pandemics. It is vital that we capitalise on the rare alignment of political will, practical experience, and technical and scientific progress emerging from the pandemic to prevent such devastation happening again. CEPI’s five-year plan for 2022-2026 – known as CEPI 2.0 - aims to dramatically reduce or even eliminate the future risk of pandemics and epidemics. Central to the plan is CEPI’s goal to accelerate the time taken to develop safe, effective, globally accessible vaccines against new threats to just 100 days. Achieving this ‘100 Days Mission’, which has been embraced by the G7 and G20, would give the world a fighting chance of containing a future outbreak before it can spread to become a global pandemic, potentially averting millions of deaths and trillions of dollars in economic damage.

CEPI is a not-for-profit association under Norwegian Law and has offices in Oslo (HQ), London, and Washington DC.

In CEPI we strive for diverse thinking, and we want a diverse pool of candidates for all our vacancies. We work for an inclusive working environment where each employee can contribute and grow.

More details about CEPI and our mission can be found on our website: www.cepi.net

About the role
• Lead one of CEPI’s R&D Programs, ensuring strategic oversight, scientific excellence, successful delivery, and management of the entire program portfolio. 
•  Provide direct leadership of several product development projects which may be directly or indirectly supportive of the relevant R&D Program.
• Ensure strategic and seamless integration into the R&D Program of related projects that are managed in other departments or divisions or by other project/ program leaders.
• Make recommendations to CEPI leadership and CEPI decision-making governance bodies related to the R&D Program strategy and portfolio they lead, and respective product development, platform technology related and enabling sciences projects.
• Support the strategy of the R&D Program they are accountable for through KOL networks, events, publications and global/regional coordination with key stakeholders.
• Contribute to the overall success of CEPI’s wider product development portfolio through sharing lessons learned, improvement of project tools and development of R&D Program teams.
• Support the Director of R&D programs for the relevant strategic and operational discussions both within CEPI and externally
• Act as an ambassador for CEPI whenever needed and as directed by CEPI.
Responsibilities
• As the leader of an R&D Program, act with full accountability for driving a clear strategy for the Program, by making recommendations to CEPI governance for defining the overall scientific, technical and business/implementation scope. This includes identifying investment opportunities and prioritizing or down-selecting activities and projects. Potential strategic and technical issues or obstacles should be addressed proactively and resolved with CEPI partners where needed.
• Incorporate contributions of related activities by other CEPI functional divisions and departments to the strategy of the R&D Program they lead.
• Take on the responsibility as a functional project leader for programs directly or indirectly related to the relevant program in addition to the responsibility as a Program Leader.
• Build an effective Program team (or project team whenever needed) and ensure that the team benefits from timely and high quality input from other departments and divisions within CEPI, and functions as a high performing and impactful matrix team. This also includes working with product development partners and CEPI functional divisions and departments to facilitate cross-project reviews of data, including analytics, plans and cross-cutting opportunities for alignment.
• Engage, motivate and coach project managers and other members of the team to enable success in all areas; foster critical thinking and establish an environment in which team members seize opportunities to improve deliverables.
• Where applicable, supervise the project leaders heading the projects that are included in their R&D Program
• Accountable for meeting the KPIs of the R&D Program they lead and respective product development, platform technology related activities and enabling sciences project plans.
• Work closely with colleagues across CEPI, consultant experts and CEPI partners to ensure successful delivery of Program objectives and project deliverables.
• As the CEPI project leader for individual product development projects, provide strong oversight of product development partner activities and continuously strive for acceleration of activities and ensure state-of-the-art scientific application.
• Monitor their R&D Program ecosystem, including the product development landscape, and conduct gap analyses.
• Identify external expertise to support strategic and technical discussions and facilitate relationships with CEPI partners and the broader scientific community, while becoming a source of Disease-specific expertise to the broader scientific community.
• Ensure communication excellence (scientific and non scientific) across the organization, and externally, on behalf of CEPI by contributing to development of manuscripts and representing the program/ project at external events
• Contribute to stage gate and portfolio analysis processes, governance reviews and support as needed for Board reviews..
• Take on any additional functional leadership responsibilities linked to the R&D programs team as allocated by the Director R&D Programs or Executive Director of R&D
Education, Experience and Competence
• Essential: advanced degree (PhD and/or MD) in relevant field.
• Extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry or non-profit vaccine development organization, working in multi-disciplinary, global, matrix environments, with direct experience leading product development projects.  
• End-to-end, in-depth knowledge of product development from research to late-stage development, licensure, and implementation, with broad knowledge of product development including pre-clinical and clinical development, translational sciences, CMC and regulatory is highly desirable.
• Strong leadership skills, with the ability to build trust with partners and manage a team of experts in a matrix, international environment
• Track record of building and developing high ...

## .

## Position details

## Vacancy
Vacancy referenceVAC-0427Job titleR&D Program LeaderDepartmentR&D ProgramsLocationOslo / London / Washington DCClose date1/11/2026
## Job description
About CEPI
Launched in 2017, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) is an international coalition of governments, academic, philanthropic, private, public, and intergovernmental institutions whose vision is to create a world in which epidemics and pandemics are no longer a threat to humanity. Our mission is to accelerate the development of vaccines and other biologic countermeasures against epidemic and pandemic threats so they can be accessible to all people in need. CEPI played a central role in the global response to COVID-19, creating the world’s largest portfolio of COVID-19 vaccines – seven of which are approved for global or domestic use - and co-leading COVAX, the global initiative to support equitable access which supported the delivery of over 2bn vaccine doses globally. CEPI has contributed to a number of scientific breakthroughs in vaccine development against other infectious diseases, including the first ever licensed Chikungunya vaccine and the first Nipah and Lassa virus vaccines into Phase 1 trials.

As COVID-19 has demonstrated, emerging infectious diseases represent an existential threat to our way of life. COVID-19 is not the first pandemic of the 21st century, and unless we act now, we can be sure that it will not be the last. Unlike some of the other big threats that humanity faces, we have the tools to systematically reduce and even eliminate the risk of future pandemics. It is vital that we capitalise on the rare alignment of political will, practical experience, and technical and scientific progress emerging from the pandemic to prevent such devastation happening again. CEPI’s five-year plan for 2022-2026 – known as CEPI 2.0 - aims to dramatically reduce or even eliminate the future risk of pandemics and epidemics. Central to the plan is CEPI’s goal to accelerate the time taken to develop safe, effective, globally accessible vaccines against new threats to just 100 days. Achieving this ‘100 Days Mission’, which has been embraced by the G7 and G20, would give the world a fighting chance of containing a future outbreak before it can spread to become a global pandemic, potentially averting millions of deaths and trillions of dollars in economic damage.

CEPI is a not-for-profit association under Norwegian Law and has offices in Oslo (HQ), London, and Washington DC.

In CEPI we strive for diverse thinking, and we want a diverse pool of candidates for all our vacancies. We work for an inclusive working environment where each employee can contribute and grow.

More details about CEPI and our mission can be found on our website: www.cepi.net

About the role
• Lead one of CEPI’s R&D Programs, ensuring strategic oversight, scientific excellence, successful delivery, and management of the entire program portfolio. 
•  Provide direct leadership of several product development projects which may be directly or indirectly supportive of the relevant R&D Program.
• Ensure strategic and seamless integration into the R&D Program of related projects that are managed in other departments or divisions or by other project/ program leaders.
• Make recommendations to CEPI leadership and CEPI decision-making governance bodies related to the R&D Program strategy and portfolio they lead, and respective product development, platform technology related and enabling sciences projects.
• Support the strategy of the R&D Program they are accountable for through KOL networks, events, publications and global/regional coordination with key stakeholders.
• Contribute to the overall success of CEPI’s wider product development portfolio through sharing lessons learned, improvement of project tools and development of R&D Program teams.
• Support the Director of R&D programs for the relevant strategic and operational discussions both within CEPI and externally
• Act as an ambassador for CEPI whenever needed and as directed by CEPI.
Responsibilities
• As the leader of an R&D Program, act with full accountability for driving a clear strategy for the Program, by making recommendations to CEPI governance for defining the overall scientific, technical and business/implementation scope. This includes identifying investment opportunities and prioritizing or down-selecting activities and projects. Potential strategic and technical issues or obstacles should be addressed proactively and resolved with CEPI partners where needed.
• Incorporate contributions of related activities by other CEPI functional divisions and departments to the strategy of the R&D Program they lead.
• Take on the responsibility as a functional project leader for programs directly or indirectly related to the relevant program in addition to the responsibility as a Program Leader.
• Build an effective Program team (or project team whenever needed) and ensure that the team benefits from timely and high quality input from other departments and divisions within CEPI, and functions as a high performing and impactful matrix team. This also includes working with product development partners and CEPI functional divisions and departments to facilitate cross-project reviews of data, including analytics, plans and cross-cutting opportunities for alignment.
• Engage, motivate and coach project managers and other members of the team to enable success in all areas; foster critical thinking and establish an environment in which team members seize opportunities to improve deliverables.
• Where applicable, supervise the project leaders heading the projects that are included in their R&D Program
• Accountable for meeting the KPIs of the R&D Program they lead and respective product development, platform technology related activities and enabling sciences project plans.
• Work closely with colleagues across CEPI, consultant experts and CEPI partners to ensure successful delivery of Program objectives and project deliverables.
• As the CEPI project leader for individual product development projects, provide strong oversight of product development partner activities and continuously strive for acceleration of activities and ensure state-of-the-art scientific application.
• Monitor their R&D Program ecosystem, including the product development landscape, and conduct gap analyses.
• Identify external expertise to support strategic and technical discussions and facilitate relationships with CEPI partners and the broader scientific community, while becoming a source of Disease-specific expertise to the broader scientific community.
• Ensure communication excellence (scientific and non scientific) across the organization, and externally, on behalf of CEPI by contributing to development of manuscripts and representing the program/ project at external events
• Contribute to stage gate and portfolio analysis processes, governance reviews and support as needed for Board reviews..
• Take on any additional functional leadership responsibilities linked to the R&D programs team as allocated by the Director R&D Programs or Executive Director of R&D
Education, Experience and Competence
• Essential: advanced degree (PhD and/or MD) in relevant field.
• Extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry or non-profit vaccine development organization, working in multi-disciplinary, global, matrix environments, with direct experience leading product development projects.  
• End-to-end, in-depth knowledge of product development from research to late-stage development, licensure, and implementation, with broad knowledge of product development including pre-clinical and clinical development, translational sciences, CMC and regulatory is highly desirable.
• Strong leadership skills, with the ability to build trust with partners and manage a team of experts in a matrix, international environment
• Track record of building and developing high ...