Chief Operating Officer Jobs in Waltham, MA

Opportunity awaits those up to the challenge of developing transformative therapies across a broad range of debilitating diseases.

Summary:

The Director, Strategy & Operations and Congress Strategy Lead is a highly visible leadership role responsible for helping the U.S. SYFOVRE franchise translate strategy into execution, drive operational excellence, and maintain strong alignment across the commercial organization and key cross-functional partners. This role will serve as a trusted strategic partner to the VP, Head of U.S. SYFOVRE Business, helping to run the business, manage operating rhythm and governance, elevate executive communications, and ensure the franchise is positioned to deliver on its priorities with clarity, discipline, and agility.
In addition, this role will serve as the SYFOVRE Congress Strategy Lead, owning the commercial congress strategy and execution approach across key ophthalmology forums. The role will ensure that SYFOVRE’s congress presence, sponsorship strategy, booth and on-site experience, and related peer-to-peer engagement plans are intentional, differentiated, compliant, and aligned to brand priorities.
This position is designed for a strategic, analytically rigorous, and highly collaborative leader who can operate effectively in a fast-paced, highly matrixed environment, influence across functions without direct authority, and synthesize complex inputs into clear recommendations and action plans. The role is expected to spend approximately 75% of time on Strategy & Operations responsibilities and 25% on Congress Strategy Lead responsibilities. The role will also require periodic travel, particularly around major congresses and key business meetings.

Roles and Responsibilities:

What You’ll Do

Strategy & Operations Responsibilities (approximately 75%)

• Serve as a trusted strategic partner to the VP, Head of U.S. SYFOVRE Business, helping plan, prioritize, and direct the most critical strategic, operational, and organizational activities across the franchise.
• Help lead and orchestrate the U.S. SYFOVRE operating model, including business reviews, leadership team meetings, governance forums, annual planning processes, and key cross-functional decision-making routines.
• Drive the franchise’s strategy-to-execution engine by translating priorities into clear workstreams, timelines, deliverables, accountabilities, and governance processes that enable disciplined execution.
• Lead meeting preparation for leadership and executive forums, including agenda setting, synthesis of cross-functional inputs, development of executive-ready pre-reads, talking points, scripts, summaries, and follow-up action tracking.
• Ensure strong alignment and information flow across Commercial, Medical, Access, Commercial Operations, Analytics, Finance, Compliance, and other key partners, while proactively surfacing risks, opportunities, and barriers to execution.
• Build and maintain a “control tower” for key franchise priorities by integrating dashboards, milestones, dependencies, risks, mitigation plans, and performance indicators to support visibility and accountability.
• Coordinate and pressure-test strategic priorities, support scenario planning, and help leadership teams evaluate tradeoffs and make timely, well-informed business decisions.
• Support the franchise’s annual planning and business performance management processes, in close partnership with Finance and cross-functional leaders, ensuring plans, investments, and execution remain aligned to business objectives.
• Track progress against near-term and long-term priorities through regular business reviews and leadership team forums, helping ensure the franchise remains on track to deliver against goals.
• Own or support the development of high-quality executive communications for internal leadership audiences, ensuring complex business updates are synthesized into concise, compelling, decision-oriented narratives.
• Identify opportunities to improve business processes, operating rhythm, governance, and ways of working to strengthen execution, maximize resources, and enhance organizational effectiveness across the franchise.
• Lead through influence across a highly matrixed organization, helping create clarity, accountability, and momentum across multiple workstreams and stakeholders.

Congress Strategy Lead Responsibilities (approximately 25%)

• Own the U.S. SYFOVRE congress strategy, ensuring presence, sponsorships, programming, and engagement plans are aligned to brand strategy, lifecycle priorities, and commercial objectives.
• Evaluate and prioritize congresses, sponsorship opportunities, and related investments to maximize scientific relevance, brand visibility, stakeholder engagement, and return on investment.
• Lead cross-functional planning and execution for major ophthalmology congresses and related forums, partnering closely with Marketing, Sales, Medical, Compliance, Operations, and external agencies/vendors to deliver a coordinated and high-quality presence.
• Drive congress planning across key workstreams, including sponsorship strategy, booth presence, on-site experience, executive planning, KOL engagement logistics, asset readiness, and performance monitoring.
• Serve as a strategic integrator across cross-functional teams, ensuring congress strategy is clearly communicated, decisions are well coordinated, and stakeholders are aligned on goals, timelines, and execution plans.
• Partner with Field leadership and cross-functional stakeholders to align on congress-related objectives, executional plans, and post-congress follow-up.
• Translate congress insights, learnings, and outcomes into actionable recommendations for brand leadership and senior stakeholders.
• Manage congress-related vendors, budgets, planning tools, and asset workflows, while ensuring programs and materials move appropriately through required review and approval processes, including PRC where applicable.
• Build and maintain productive relationships with relevant congress organizations, societies, and external partners in support of franchise objectives.

Who You Are

You are a strategic and operational leader with strong business acumen, excellent judgment, and the ability to connect high-level strategy to practical execution. You are comfortable navigating ambiguity, operating independently, and influencing without authority in a complex matrixed environment. You bring strong analytical, organizational, and communication skills, and you are adept at building trust with senior leaders and cross-functional stakeholders.

You are equally comfortable running the day-to-day operating rhythm of a commercial franchise, preparing polished executive materials, identifying risks before they become issues, and leading high-impact initiatives that require coordination across multiple functions. You also have the strategic mindset and execution discipline to shape a differentiated congress presence and ensure flawless delivery against brand priorities.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required; MBA or advanced degree preferred.
• 10+ years of experience in biotech/pharma, management consulting, commercial strategy, strategic operations, program management, or related roles.
• Proven experience supporting senior leadership and driving strategic planning, governance, operational execution, and cross-functional alignment within a commercial or franchise environment.
• Strong project management and organizational capabilities, including the ability to manage multiple priorities, timelines, dependencies, and stakeholders simultaneously.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with demonstrated ability to produce executive-ready materials and synthesize complex inputs into clear, compelling narratives and recommendations.
• Strong analytical, strategic thinking, and problem-solving skills, with the ability to identify critical issues early and drive thoughtful, actionable solutions.
• Demonstrated ability to influence without formal authority and drive alignment in a highly matrixed organization.
• Experience working across Commercial, Medical, Access, Operations, Compliance, Finance, and related functions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in ophthalmology, retina, specialty care, or closely related therapeutic areas strongly preferred.
• Experience with congress strategy, peer-to-peer engagement, sponsorship planning, and/or customer-facing commercial event strategy preferred.
• Experience in launch readiness, franchise planning, or operating in a high-growth or rapidly evolving commercial environment preferred.
• Experience with budget management, performance tracking, and operating reviews preferred.

Additional Role Information

• Location: Cambridge, MA
• Work Model: Hybrid, with expectation of being in the office 3 days per week
• Travel: Travel will be required based on business needs and congress calendar

Travel Requirements:

Travel: Travel will be required based on business needs and congress calendar
‎

Education:

Pay Information:

Base salary for this role will consider multiple factors, including but not limited to, candidate qualifications, relevant expertise, specialized skills, and industry experience in complement-targeted therapies. The targeted base salary range for this position is $199,000-$274,000. This range represents the base salary only and reflects Apellis' commitment to competitive compensation within the biopharmaceutical industry. The final salary offered may vary based on individual qualifications, business needs, and current market conditions.

Work Arrangement:

Hybrid

Benefits and Perks:

Apellis offers a comprehensive benefits package, including a 401(k) plan with company match, inclusive family building benefits, flexible time off, summer and winter shutdowns, paid family leave, disability and life insurance, and more! Visit https://apellis.com/careers/benefits/ to learn more.

SPECIAL NOTE ON BIOGEN ACQUISITION

Please note that as of May 14 th , Biogen Inc. has acquired Apellis Pharmaceuticals. Click here to learn more about Benefits & Perks of working at Biogen: Benefits | Biogen

Company Background:

Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a global biopharmaceutical company leading the way in complement science to develop life-changing therapies for some of the most challenging diseases patients face. We ushered in the first new class of complement medicine in 15 years and now have two C3-targeting medicines approved to treat four serious diseases. Breakthroughs for patients include the first-ever therapy for geographic atrophy, a leading cause of blindness, and the first treatment for patients 12 and older with C3G or primary IC-MPGN, two severe, rare kidney diseases. We believe we have only begun to unlock the potential of targeting C3 across many serious diseases.

For more information, please visit http://apellis.com or follow us on LinkedIn and X .

EEO Statement:

Apellis is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state and local fair employment practices laws. Apellis strictly prohibits and does not tolerate discrimination against employees, applicants or any other covered persons because of race, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, sex (including pregnancy), gender (including gender nonconformity and status as a transgender or transsexual individual), age, physical or mental disability, citizenship, past, current or prospective service in the uniformed services, genetic information, marital status, AIDS/HIV status, smoker/nonsmoker, and occupational pneumoconiosis or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state or local law.

For San Francisco postings: Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Other Duties:

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.