About Zifo:
Zifo is a global scientific and technical consulting partner specializing in strategy, informatics, and innovation for clients in life sciences organizations, such as pharmaceutical R&D, biotechnology, and agritech. We help organizations accelerate discovery, optimize development pipelines, and leverage data to achieve measurable impact.
Position Overview:
The Associate Scientific Strategy Consultant sits within the North American consulting group wherein key accountabilities include driving project elucidation, stakeholder management and defining & driving project success in partnership with internal and external stakeholders. The successful candidate will lead medium-to-high complexity consulting engagements for multiple customers. This role blends scientific expertise, industry knowledge, and informatics/data skills with leadership and collaboration to deliver high-quality solutions. You will work closely with senior consultants, client stakeholders, and cross-functional teams to ensure project success, drive operational excellence, and contribute to business development.
Key Responsibilities:
Consulting & Scientific Strategy
- Engage as a leader to define and own project success, leveraging core consulting behaviours such as active listening, empathetic collaboration, strong sense of ownership and effective communication across multiple audiences
- Own accountability for business analysis deliverables including user requirements specifications (URS), functional requirements specifications, data & process maps, workflows, gap analyses, implementation roadmaps, evaluation methodologies, and questionnaires.
- Conduct vendor evaluations and define implementation strategies to enable effective decision-making by pharma/biotech/agritech clients.
- Assess system landscapes and contribute to IT, informatics and data landscape roadmaps.
Project Execution & Leadership
- Manage one or more large projects/programs, including estimation, scheduling, risk management, and milestone tracking.
- Facilitate project meetings, communicate status updates, and escalate risks when necessary.
- Mentor associates across Zifo, guiding their project engagements and professional development.
- Track and monitor key project metrics to ensure the success of client engagements as well as adherence to operational components of project delivery.
Customer Engagement & Collaboration
- Serve as primary point of contact for clients and internal stakeholders, managing expectations on process, quality, schedule, and delivery - all with an overall view of what qualifies as successful engagement
- Build rapport with client managers and support and/or drive strategic customer meetings.
- Identify opportunities for additional value creation within client organizations and internal process improvements.
Operational Excellence & Continuous Improvement
- Plan and track billable effort, manage utilization and productivity of themselves and teams, and support budget forecasting.
- Manage escalations, identify & track risks to project execution, initiate corrective and preventive actions (CAPA) and drive continuous improvement initiatives.
- Support internal training programs, and mentor team members in emerging areas.
Business Development & Thought Leadership
- Assist in proposals related to emerging opportunities with clients and supporting RFP responses.
- Contribute to case studies, presentations, and white papers.
- Attend industry conferences for learning, networking, and representing Zifo.
Learning, Mentorship & Continuous Improvement
- Demonstrate continuous learning in scientific domains, informatics systems and data strategies, change management and strategic consulting methodologies.
- Identify needs and drive efforts for internal development and knowledge-sharing initiatives.
- Mentor other analysts across business units within Zifo, fostering collaboration career development.