Sr. Specialist, Field Enablement Planning & Execution

Merck Merck · Pharma · United States · Remote

This role is for a Sr. Specialist in Field Enablement Planning & Execution within Merck's US Market. The primary focus is on project management, program orchestration, and day-to-day execution of cross-functional initiatives to optimize the customer-facing sales organization. Responsibilities include managing timelines, dependencies, risks, and ensuring synchronized delivery of projects. The role involves collaboration with various departments including Sales, Marketing, HR, Compliance, Legal, and Data Science functions, but does not involve direct AI/ML development.

What you'd actually do

  1. Project management: Demonstrate enterprise-level understanding of how planning, sequencing, and execution choices affect field readiness, launch timing, and transformation outcomes across multiple workstreams. Act as the cross-workstream orchestration hub by sequencing activities, clarifying hand-offs, and aligning timing with Sales Leadership and HQ partners.
  2. End-to-end execution ownership: Own part of the end-to-end execution across complex initiatives by proactively managing timelines, dependencies, risks, and trade-offs to ensure synchronized, on-time delivery.
  3. Process improvement and continuity: Support development and execution of sustainable, repeatable business processes and documentation to increase process awareness and ensure business continuity.
  4. Field readiness and governance: Lead Field Readiness stand-ups and other strategy meetings; capture and manage risks, issues, decisions, and dependencies discussed; ensure completion of assigned action items and agreed next steps. Identify and map dependencies across field readiness workstreams and facilitate cross-functional alignment to remove blockers and accelerate readiness.
  5. Risk management and issue resolution: Proactively identify, assess, and mitigate risks across interdependent initiatives; escalate appropriately and manage trade-offs to protect launch timing and transformation outcomes. Capture root causes, track remediation plans, and ensure effective follow-through.

Skills

Required

  • Bachelor’s Degree
  • Minimum of 4 years of relevant work experience in the Pharmaceutical/Healthcare field
  • Proficient with Microsoft Excel and common project management / collaboration tools
  • Strong project management skills
  • Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively across multiple workstreams
  • Process-minded and exceptional attention to detail
  • Excellent verbal and written communication skills
  • Proven ability to independently identify issues, drive resolution, and ensure follow-through
  • Agile mindset, adaptable to ambiguity, with strong critical thinking and problem-solving abilities
  • Experience and ability influencing without authority, working with ambiguity, navigating complex organizations and successfully networking and forming partnerships with cross-functional teams
  • Strong business acumen, proven strategic thinking, problem-solving, decision making and strategic planning skills
  • Strong stakeholder engagement, influencing without authority, and vendor/partner management skills

Nice to have

  • Experience in HQ commercial operations

What the JD emphasized

  • Strong communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and vendor management skills are critical.
  • Strong project management skills including managing complex timelines, dependencies, process mapping and cross-functional risks.
  • Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively across multiple workstreams with stakeholders at various levels of the organization, plan and execute.
  • Proven ability to independently identify issues, drive resolution, and ensure follow-through.
  • Experience and ability influencing without authority, working with ambiguity, navigating complex organizations and successfully networking and forming partnerships with cross-functional teams.
  • Strong business acumen, proven strategic thinking, problem-solving, decision making and strategic planning skills
  • Strong stakeholder engagement, influencing without authority, and vendor/partner management skills