Ardena is a contract development and manufacturing organization for the pharmaceutical industry. We assist pharmaceutical companies, varying from virtual biotech to big pharma, in bringing their valued molecule(s) to the clinic and market. We provide a comprehensive and integrated portfolio of drug substance and drug product development, manufacturing, logistics, dossier development, and bioanalytical services.

Ardena is a rapidly growing, internationally oriented organization with a dedicated team of over 500 professionals operating from six sites in Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, Latvia, and Spain. Ardena has an open and transparent culture: team-spirit, an open mindset, and ownership are important values in our company.

The Ardena group has a divisional structure clustering its business units into a CHEM-, PHARM, and BIO-division. The CHEM division includes the business units in The Netherlands and in Sweden, and focuses on Drug Substance development and manufacturing services (API-NL and API-SE), Nanomedicines development and manufacturing services (Nanomedicines), and Solid State Research (SSR). Today each business unit is responsible for their own project management. However, many customer projects in CHEM require activities that are executed by more than one business unit. In order to professionalize our project management, and to improve our customer’s experience, one Project Management Office (PMO) for the entire CHEM division is formed. This PMO will be comprised of dedicated projects managers, working from the sites in Oss (Netherlands), and Sodertalje (Sweden) and this group will be led by the Head of Project Management.

Head of Project Management

ABOUT THE ROLE

You will create and lead the PMO across the Oss and the Sodertalje sites of the CHEM Division and drive the development and implementation of required tools and processes. You manage your team members (8-10) to take the lead in Ardena’s CHEM projects to ensure that goals and deliverables are met timely and within budget. The PMO is responsible for coordination and communication between the customer and Ardena, and aims for an optimal customer experience. In addition, you will support the CHEM-sales team, and the operational teams within the business units with work orders for new or ongoing projects. 

YOUR KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• You ensure realization of financial targets and customer satisfaction through delivery of projects to the agreed cost, timelines, scope and quality constraints.
• You have a leading role in following up project profitability, monitoring overspend, and ensure appropriate actions are being taken to mitigate or avoid overspend.
• Together with Business Development and line management, the PMO keeps track of project progress, the project portfolio and embedding of new projects into the organization.
• You take a proactive role in resolving planning, resource & quality issues and alignment between all internal stakeholders (Process R&D, Analytical Sciences, Production, Quality Assurance) and the customer.
• The PMO will provide accurate and regular updates on timelines, deliverables and budget. It will timely escalate potential issues, both internally and externally and propose mitigation strategies when needed.
• You lead your team in driving continuous improvement of the project management processes and practices.
• The PMO will assist Business Development in translating customer demands and requests into proposals and work-orders and negotiate related timelines and budgets.
• You will engage in strategy discussions with customers and provide feedback and support with respect to CMC related questions.
• You will be a member of the MT of the CHEM Division.

YOUR PROFILE

• You have a PhD degree in (organic/analytical) chemistry, pharmacy or toxicology and at least ten years of experience in leading a team as well as in project management of development projects.
• You have in-depth knowledge of, and experience with, development and commercialization of pharmaceutical ingredients (like API’s) and/or pharmaceutical products. Experience with nanomaterials is of added value.
• You have extensive experience with cGMP and CMC in all stages of development from (pre)clinical to commercialization.
• You have strong organizational skills and have shown experience with creating and developing a department and its processes.
• You operate strategically within a commercial environment and have strong communicative skills.
• You are flexible, pragmatic, a problem solver and you connect people.
• You have an analytical mindset, are stress resistant, and show leadership.

WHAT WE OFFER

• A rapidly developing and growing international company with an attractive service, product and customer portfolio
• A dynamic working environment with an open, straightforward but also caring culture
• An attractive remuneration package, including bonus incentive plan
• Flexible working hours

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Only candidates eligible to work in the EU will be considered for the position. Unfortunately, given the high volume of applications we receive for our vacancies, professionals not entitled to work in the European Union will not be given a status update.

Agency calls will not be appreciated.