Chief Operating Officer (Pharmaceutical)

We are looking for an experienced and highly strategic Chief Operating Officer (COO) to lead the organization's Sales Operations and Marketing Operations.

The COO will play a critical role in translating corporate strategy and growth objectives into disciplined commercial execution. This executive leader will be responsible for driving revenue growth, profitability, market expansion, portfolio performance, customer impact, brand effectiveness, and sales execution.

The successful candidate will create an integrated Sales and Marketing operating model with clear priorities, strong accountability, effective performance management, and timely corrective action.

This role will work closely with senior leaders and key enabling functions, including Commercial Excellence, Supply Chain, Finance, Medical Affairs, Regulatory Affairs, and Human Resources, to ensure strong cross-functional execution.

Key Responsibilities

Sales & Marketing Leadership

• Provide strategic and operational leadership for Sales Operations and Marketing Operations.
• Translate corporate growth objectives into integrated commercial strategies and operating plans.
• Drive alignment between Sales and Marketing teams to ensure effective execution of customer, brand, portfolio, and growth strategies.
• Establish clear priorities, accountabilities, timelines, and measurable business outcomes.
• Implement disciplined business review processes, action tracking, escalation, and follow-through.

Sales Operations

• Drive achievement of sales revenue, profitability, market growth, and execution objectives.
• Monitor sales performance, territory productivity, customer coverage, account development, and commercial execution.
• Strengthen sales planning, forecasting, pipeline visibility, and field execution.
• Ensure effective implementation of sales plans, customer engagement strategies, call priorities, and account action plans.
• Identify performance gaps and drive timely corrective actions.
• Build strong accountability among Sales leaders for target achievement, productivity, coaching, and execution quality.

Marketing Operations

• Lead the execution of marketing strategies aligned with portfolio, brand, customer, and corporate growth priorities.
• Monitor brand performance, portfolio growth, campaign execution, product launches, and marketing effectiveness.
• Ensure marketing initiatives translate into clear field priorities and measurable business impact.
• Strengthen collaboration between Brand/Marketing and Sales teams to improve customer engagement, demand generation, brand conversion, and new customer acquisition.
• Optimize marketing investments and resource allocation based on business potential and expected returns.
• Oversee the execution and post-implementation review of campaigns, product launches, customer programs, and other major initiatives.

Commercial Performance Management

• Establish Sales and Marketing performance goals, scorecards, and key performance indicators.
• Conduct regular business reviews using sales, market, customer, brand, and execution data.
• Utilize dashboards and management reports to drive decision-making, accountability, and corrective action.
• Lead initiatives to improve sales productivity, marketing effectiveness, customer experience, execution quality, and profitability.
• Promote a strong culture of data-driven decision-making and performance ownership.

Cross-Functional Business Integration

• Partner closely with Commercial Excellence on sales force effectiveness, CRM discipline, commercial analytics, capability-building, training, customer segmentation, and territory strategies.
• Collaborate with Supply Chain and other operational teams to ensure alignment on demand requirements, product availability, launches, inventory priorities, and customer service issues.
• Work with Medical Affairs and Regulatory teams to ensure commercial activities are scientifically appropriate and compliant with relevant requirements.
• Partner with Finance on forecasting, budgeting, profitability, commercial investments, and performance analysis.
• Resolve cross-functional execution challenges through effective governance and stakeholder management.

Financial & Resource Management

• Manage Sales and Marketing operating budgets and ensure resources are deployed toward high-value business priorities.
• Drive productivity and cost effectiveness while maintaining strong customer impact and execution quality.
• Review commercial and marketing investments to ensure expected business impact and return.
• Support annual business planning, budgeting, forecasting, and resource allocation.

Leadership & Organizational Development

• Lead, coach, and develop senior Sales and Marketing leaders.
• Strengthen accountability, strategic thinking, execution discipline, and people leadership across the commercial organization.
• Build succession pipelines and leadership capability for critical commercial positions.
• Foster a culture of collaboration, customer focus, performance ownership, innovation, agility, and continuous improvement.
• Drive employee engagement and alignment with organizational goals and strategic priorities.

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Management, Pharmacy, or a related field.
• An MBA, postgraduate degree, or relevant executive education is an advantage.
• At least 10–15 years of progressive commercial experience with significant leadership responsibility.
• Proven experience in Sales, Marketing, Business Unit Leadership, Commercial Operations, or General Management.
• Demonstrated experience leading both Sales and Marketing teams or managing integrated commercial operations.
• Strong experience in pharmaceutical, healthcare, FMCG, consumer products, or other market-driven industries. Pharmaceutical experience is highly preferred.