Associate Director, Safety & Environment, Biosafety CoE

🌟 Exciting Opportunity! 🌟 We are seeking a passionate individual to join our Corporate Environmental Health & Safety's (EHS) Biosafety Center of Excellence (COE) team as an Associate Director of Biosafety at Merck or MSD, where innovation meets purpose. In this pivotal role, you will play a key part in guiding and shaping our global biosafety program, driving critical initiatives, building technical capabilities, and promoting a strong biosafety culture across the organization.

Join us in making a significant impact on patient and animal health while being part of a team that truly values your voice and empowers you to make meaningful contributions!

Job Description

An exciting opportunity is available for a talented Biosafety professional to join the Global Biosafety Center of Excellence (CoE) team as an Associate Director, Biosafety CoE.  This individual will be responsible for the management of corporate Biosafety. They will provide technical biosafety expertise to global manufacturing sites, research laboratories and project teams.  The successful candidate may be located at any Company site.

Specific objectives include: 

• Provide technical guidance and advise on biosafety regulations to support a compliant workplace.
• Develop and manage company’s biosafety standards and technical guidelines to ensure compliance and reduction in workplace biosafety risks.
• Lead global continuous improvement initiatives to improve global biosafety programs. 
• Build biosafety capabilities by simplifying existing and creating new systems and tools that enables our customers to adapt biosafety requirements into daily operations.
• Act as a change agent to ensure changes to standards, guidelines, systems and tools achieve the desired outcome.
• Partner with regional and site EHS personnel to implement effective biosafety programs through communication tools, training, and project plans.
• Evaluate, monitor and communicate the effectiveness of biosafety programs and provide solutions to address gaps.
• Promote industry practices that can improve biosafety performance, strengthen compliance and further minimize Biosafety risks.
• Provide support and expert advice to divisions and sites to control biosafety hazards for manufacturing, research and support personnel.
• Provide support and expert advice to other organizations whose functions rely on biosafety regulations, guidelines and consensus standards, such as Employee Health and Global Trade Compliance.
• Conduct biosafety program reviews at company facilities across the globe.

• Identify, interpret and perform impact analysis on emerging global biosafety regulations, guidelines and consensus

• Audit biosafety programs and prepare clear, concise documentation of findings.
• Supporting providing information for required government, industry and management reports required.

• Evaluate Biosafety trends and communicate biosafety related incidents across company divisions.
• Support biological facility decommissioning activities as required.

Required Education, Experience and Skills:

To excel in this role, you will more than likely have:

• Master’s degree and a minimum of five (5) years of experience in implementing and sustaining Biosafety programs, or
• Bachelor’s degree and a minimum of ten (10) years of experience implementing and sustaining Biosafety programs.

• Subject matter expertise in:

• Biosafety concepts, practices, principles (biological risk assessment) and handling techniques and instrumentation.
• Control and containment measures and methods to control and reduce biosafety risk (biological risk assessment).
• Biosafety regulatory requirements, industry consensus standards, and recognized best practices.

• 7+ years of progressive leadership experience. 
• Team player capable of working collaboratively within a global, multi-functional team environment within and outside of the EHS organization.
• Ability to influence both horizontally and vertically within an organization.
• Strong analytical skills with demonstrated problem solving ability.
• Experience working with and implementing innovative solutions.
• Strong project management skills.
• Demonstrated strong written and verbal communication skills as well as interpersonal skills.
• Experience in both strategy development and tactical execution.
• Experience in organizational change management (transformation) and continuous improvement.
• Highly independent and able to foresee issues and needs of the organization.

Preferred Experience and Skills:

• Prior biotechnology and/or pharmaceutical industry experience
• Relevant biosafety certification (e.g., RBP, CSBP, IFBA)

Location

Position may be located at any Company site.