Associate Director, Incentive Compensation

Job Description:

As a privately-owned, biopharmaceutical company, Ferring pioneers and delivers life-changing therapies that help people build families and live better lives. Our independence helps us cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit and long-term perspective that enables us to achieve growth and scale, while remaining agile and true to our ‘people first’ philosophy. Built on a 70-year plus commitment to science and research, Ferring is relentless in its pursuit of science that drives powerful discoveries and therapies to help people build families, stay healthy, and stand up to the world’s oldest enemy: disease.

The Associate Director, Incentive Compensation (IC) owns the end-to-end US incentive compensation program for Ferring's field-based sales, account management and market access teams. The role leads plan design, goal setting, payout administration, annual awards contests, and the governance framework.

This is a high-visibility, largely independent role that directs external vendor and consultant resources to deliver. The Associate Director partners closely with Sales Leadership, Finance, HR, Legal and Compliance. Plans must be fiscally responsible, motivational, equitable and simple enough for every field employee to understand.

With Ferring, you will be joining a recognized leader, identified as one of “The World’s Most Innovative Companies” by Fast Company, and honored by Fortune with inclusion on its “Change the World List,” for addressing society’s unmet needs. Ferring US is also Great Places to Work® Certified, distinguishing it as one of the best companies to work for in the country.

Responsibilities

IC Operations and Payout Administration

• Oversee quarterly IC calculation, validation and reporting in partnership with the IC vendor, ensuring accuracy, timeliness and auditability.
• Manage pre- and post-payout adjustments, appeals, data restatements and impact analyses under the approved adjustment policies.
• Prepare and manage payroll submissions through the required approval chain
• Manage the quarterly IC budget and forecast, and keep Finance informed of changes that affect accruals and budget utilization.
• Interface with IT, data and analytics teams to ensure appropriate data procurement, integration, alignment and governance.

IC Strategy and Plan Design

• Lead IC plan design across all business units and roles for brands at every lifecycle stage from launch to mature.
• Assess current plan effectiveness each quarter and year, identify required changes, and build proposals with simulated budget utilization, fairness and equity analyses, and compliance considerations.
• Design and maintain MBO-based plans for account-facing roles
• Own goal-setting strategy and methodology including goal models, refreshes and national-to-territory allocation.
• Partner with HR on pay mix and target incentive benchmarking so IC targets remain market-competitive and internally consistent across career levels.

IC Governance and Policy

• Own and maintain the IC Governance and IC Processes SOP, IC policies, and the decision log, including the approval matrix (RACI) for plan design, contests, eligibility rules, adjustments and payouts.
• Intake and evaluate IC change and exception requests from across the organization, assess them against policy, and route them to the correct approval tier.
• Establish and enforce IC rules and timelines, including eligibility, leave of absence, new hire, guarantee, termination and territory-change treatment.
• Ensure IC plans and programs comply with company policy, healthcare compliance requirements and applicable laws; flag decisions that require governance or compliance review.

Annual Awards, Contests and Recognition

• Design, track and administer annual award programs
• Design and govern sales contests against established guardrails
• Provide regular performance and ranking reporting so the field and leadership can see progress throughout the year.
• Keep program top of mind amongst field employees.

Analytics, Reporting and Technology

• Measure plan effectiveness, payout distribution, budget utilization and goal attainment; provide regular updates to each business unit and to the Governance Committee.
• Use industry benchmarks and survey data to inform plan design and pay practice recommendations.
• Identify opportunities to streamline and automate IC operations, including evaluating and implementing IC platforms, field reporting tools and AI-enabled workflows.
• Conduct ad hoc analysis, contest simulations, etc.

Stakeholder Partnership and Communication

• Serve as the IC subject-matter expert and trusted advisor
• Build and execute the field communication plan: plan documents, rollout materials, training and FAQs that make each plan easy to understand.
• Respond to field and leadership questions on individual performance and payouts, and support HR and Legal on IC-related employee relations, audit and litigation requests.

Vendor and Resource Leadership

• Manage the external IC vendor relationship, including statements of work, deliverables, service levels and quarterly transition processes.
• Direct and develop consultants and analysts supporting IC operations, analytics and governance documentation.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Analytics or a related field.
• 5+ years of direct incentive compensation experience, preferably in pharmaceutical, biotech or life sciences.
• 3+ years of sales analytics, sales operations or consulting experience.
• Strong knowledge of sales incentive theory and its practical application, including goal-based, commission and MBO plan types.
• Experience designing IC plans across the product lifecycle, from launch to mature brands.
• Working knowledge of healthcare compliance considerations as they apply to field incentives.
• Advanced Excel and PowerPoint skills; comfort working with large sales and alignment datasets.

Preferred

• MBA or other advanced degree.
• Experience with IC administration platforms and pharmaceutical data sources (for example IQVIA, specialty pharmacy and 867 data).
• Experience managing IC vendors and offshore or consulting delivery teams.
• Interest in applying AI and automation to scale analysis and operations.

Core Competencies

• Sound judgment: weighs the tradeoffs and makes clear recommendations, not just options.
• Ability to influence senior executives and drive alignment in a matrixed environment without direct authority.
• Clear, concise written and verbal communication for audiences from field representatives to the CFO.
• Strong project management skills and the ability to handle multiple quarterly deadlines at once.
• High attention to detail, discretion with confidential compensation data, and a strong sense of ownership.

Ferring + you

At Ferring, we offer competitive total compensation along with an exceptional range of flexible benefits, personal support and tailored learning and development opportunities all designed to help you realize your full potential both in life and at work. From working hours that respect your lifestyle, a culture that is welcoming and equitable, and the chance to work with the industry’s most impressive people, these are just some of the ways we live our "People First" philosophy.

Our Compensation and Benefits

At Ferring, base salary is one part of our competitive total compensation and benefits package and is determined using a salary range. The base salary range for this role is $151,000 to 280,000, which is the reasonable estimate of the base compensation for this role. The actual amount paid may differ based on non-discriminatory factors such as experience, knowledge, skills, abilities, education and primary work location. Additional compensation for this role will be provided based on competitive annual incentive compensation targets in the form of an annual bonus - payouts are based on individual and company performance.

Benefits for this role include: comprehensive healthcare (medical, dental, and vision) with a premium differential, inverse to base salary, to be paid by employees; a 401k plan and company match; short and long-term disability coverage; basic life insurance; wellness benefits; reimbursement for certain tuition expenses; sick time frontloaded yearly of 40 hours, or higher if state or local law requires; vacation time for full time employees to accrue between 112.5 and 150 hours yearly in the first four (4) years of employment, and additional accruals starting in the fifth (5th) year of employment; and 12 to 13 paid holidays per year. We are proud to offer 20 weeks of paid parental leave, learn more about the parental leave offering in our benefits package here. For roles that are not field-based, Ferring has a hybrid work policy that is four days in the office, with the option to work one day remotely.

Ferring is an equal opportunity employer. All aspects of employment will be based on merit, competence, performance, and business needs. We do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state, or local laws.

Join our team and your voice will be heard, and your contributions will be valued. If you love to come up with new ways to make a positive difference and see them through, you will fit right in.

We are proud to be an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer (including Disability/Protected Veterans). We maintain a drug-free workplace.

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