{"id":4169178,"url":"https://alion.io/job/ascendis-pharma-associate-project-director-graps","title":"Associate Project Director, GRAPS","company":{"id":8553,"name":"Ascendis Pharma","domain":"ascendispharma.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/ascendispharma","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workable","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":98,"open_postings":10,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":58,"computed_at":"2026-11-12T10:38:37Z"}},"role":"Management","role_family":"Management","seniority":"head","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"explicit","locations":["Princeton, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":180000,"max":190000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":190000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Agile","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-24T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-24","last_verified_at":"2026-11-12T14:17:51Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":49,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":49},"description":"Ascendis Pharma is a dynamic, fast-growing global biopharmaceutical company with locations in Denmark, Europe, and the United States. Today, we're advancing programs in Endocrinology Rare Disease and Oncology.\nHere at Ascendis, we pride ourselves on exceptional science, visionary leadership, and skilled and passionate colleagues.\nGuided by our core values of Patients, Science, and Passion, we use our TransCon® drug development platform to fulfill our mission of developing new and potentially best-in-class therapies to address unmet medical needs.\nOur culture fosters a place where skilled, adaptable, and highly resourceful professionals can truly make their mark. We offer a dynamic workplace for employees to grow and develop their skills.\nPosition summary\nThe Associate Project Director, GRAPS is a senior project-management professional who translates GRAPS priorities into disciplined execution across Global Regulatory Affairs, Global Patient Safety, and enterprise partners. The role establishes fit-for-purpose governance, integrated plans, decision pathways, performance reporting, and risk management for a portfolio of strategic and operational initiatives.\nWorking with the Chief Regulatory & Safety Officer, GRAPS Leadership Team, functional leaders, and cross-functional stakeholders, this individual will lead small-to-medium, complex projects and selected larger workstreams that require coordination across functions, geographies, vendors, and systems. The role combines strategic perspective with hands-on delivery and is expected to influence without authority, improve ways of working, and strengthen quality, compliance, predictability, and organizational scalability.\nKey responsibilities\nStrategic portfolio and project leadership\nLead assigned GRAPS projects and programs from definition through closeout, with clear charters, scope, objectives, outcomes, milestones, owners, dependencies, and success measures.\nPartner with GRAPS leaders to translate strategic priorities into integrated roadmaps and sequenced execution plans aligned with portfolio and enterprise objectives.\nMaintain a consolidated view of the GRAPS project portfolio, distinguishing project work from base-business activity and highlighting capacity constraints, interdependencies, and decisions required.\nFacilitate project initiation, prioritization, stage reviews, lessons learned, and benefits realization.\nGovernance, planning, and delivery\nEstablish and run proportionate governance, including core teams, steering forums, agendas, decision logs, action tracking, and escalation pathways. \nDevelop and maintain integrated project plans, critical paths, resource assumptions, budgets, RAID (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, and Dependencies or Decisions) logs, and change controls.\nMonitor execution against scope, schedule, quality, cost, and expected outcomes; identify emerging issues early and drive recovery plans.\nPrepare concise executive dashboards, status reports, decision memos, and recommendations for the GRAPS Leadership Team and other governance bodies.\nCross-functional collaboration and communication\nCoordinate stakeholders across Regulatory Affairs, Patient Safety, Clinical Development, Medical Affairs, Quality, IT, Finance, HR, Legal, Procurement, and external partners, as applicable.\nCreate clarity on roles, accountabilities, interfaces, and handoffs, using fit-for-purpose RACI or equivalent tools.\nFacilitate complex workshops and working sessions that align stakeholders, resolve ambiguity, and convert discussion into decisions and accountable actions.\nCommunicate proactively and tailor content for executive, technical, and operational audiences across cultures and time zones.\nOperational excellence, quality, and compliance\nIdentify opportunities to standardize, simplify, and scale GRAPS processes, templates, tools, and operating practices.\nPartner with process owners and Quality to ensure project deliverables support applicable GxP, regulatory, pharmacovigilance, documentation, training, inspection-readiness, and records-management requirements.\nUse data and trend analysis to monitor performance, identify root causes, and recommend sustainable improvements.\nSupport adoption of digital project-management, collaboration, dashboarding, workflow, and knowledge-management capabilities.\nResource, vendor, and change management\nCoordinate resource planning for assigned initiatives and surface trade-offs requiring leadership action.\nSupport vendor selection, statements of work, onboarding, purchase-order coordination, deliverable oversight, and performance monitoring in partnership with Procurement and Finance.\nDevelop stakeholder and change-impact assessments, communication plans, readiness activities, and adoption measures for new processes, systems, and operating models.\nProvide direction, coaching, and project-methodology support to workstream leads and more junior project-management colleagues; may lead contractors or matrixed team members.\nRequirements\nProfessional qualifications\nBachelor’s degree in life sciences, business, project management, engineering, or a related discipline; advanced degree is preferred.\nTypically 8 or more years of relevant experience in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, or other highly regulated industry, including substantial responsibility for cross-functional project or program delivery.\nDemonstrated experience leading small-to-medium complex projects or major workstreams with functional-management stakeholders and limited day-to-day supervision.\nWorking knowledge of drug development and commercialization, with experience in Regulatory Affairs, Pharmacovigilance/Patient Safety, Quality, Regulatory Operations, or adjacent functions strongly preferred.\nDemonstrated command of project and program management practices, including scope, schedule, resource, budget, dependency, risk, issue, change, governance, and benefits management.\nExperience preparing executive-ready dashboards, status reports, decision materials, and presentations using Microsoft 365 and relevant project-management or reporting tools.\nProject-management certification such as PMP, PRINCE2, or equivalent is preferred; Agile or change-management training is an advantage.\nLeadership capabilities and personal attributes\nEnterprise mindset and patient focus, with sound judgment about business, quality, compliance, and reputational risk.\nAdvanced stakeholder-management and influencing skills, including the ability to establish alignment and accountability without formal authority.\nHighly structured, analytical, and detail-oriented while maintaining focus on strategic intent and outcomes.\nAble to simplify complexity, frame options, recommend a path forward, and communicate decisions clearly.\nComfortable operating in ambiguity, managing competing priorities, and adapting plans as conditions change.\nCollaborative, inclusive, culturally aware, and effective in a global matrix environment.\nHigh integrity, discretion, ownership, and commitment to transparent communication and follow-through.\nKey interfaces\nPrimary - Chief Regulatory & Safety Officer; GRAPS Leadership Team; GRAPS Enablement & Insights\nFunctional - Global Regulatory Affairs; Global Patient Safety; Regulatory Operations; Quality and Compliance\nEnterprise - Clinical Development; Medical Affairs; IT; Finance; HR; Legal; Procurement; Communications\nExternal - Consultants, CROs, technology providers, and other vendors, as required\nMeasures of success\nProjects have agreed scope, governance, accountabilities, milestones, risk controls, and measurable outcomes.\nLeadership receives timely, decision-ready visibility into progress, dependencies, resource needs, risks, and trade-offs.\nPriority deliverables are completed to agreed quality and timelines, with issues escalated early and recovery actions documented.\nWays of working become more consistent, efficient, scalable, and inspection-ready across GRAPS.\nStakeholders understand decisions, responsibilities, and next steps, and demonstrate sustained adoption of implemented changes.\nAdditional information\nTravel: Ability to travel domestically and internationally up to approximately 10%, based on business needs.\nLocation: Proposed as a US or EU remote or hybrid role, with travel to Ascendis locations and business-critical meetings as needed.\nThis description summarizes the principal responsibilities of the role and may be adjusted as organizational priorities evolve.\nThe estimated salary range for this position is $180k - $190k. Actual salary determination is dependent on a variety of factors some of which include: experience, qualifications, and geographic location. This position may be eligible for a discretionary annual bonus or an incentive compensation plan (eligibility varies based on role and position level), discretionary stock-based long-term incentives, paid time off, and a comprehensive benefits package.\nBenefits\n 401(k) plan with company match\n Medical, dental, and vision plans\n Company-offered Life and Accidental Death & Dismemberment (AD&D) insurance\n Company-provided short and long-term disability benefits\n Unique offerings of Pet Insurance and Legal Insurance\n Employee Assistance Program\n Employee Discounts\n Professional Development\n Health Saving Account (HSA)\n Flexible Spending Accounts\n Various incentive compensation plans\n Accident, Critical Illness, and Hospital Indemnity Insurance \n Mental Health resources\n Paid leave benefits for new parents\n Ascendis Pharma is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.\nA note to recruiters:\nWe do not allow external search party solicitation. Presentation of candidates without written permission from the Ascendis Pharma Inc Human Resources team (specifically from: Talent Acquisition Partner or Human Resources Director) is not allowed. 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