Associate Director, Portfolio Operations and Insights

Position Summary:

The Associate Director of R&D Portfolio Operations & Insights will drive the design, standardization, and continuous improvement of portfolio management processes across the R&D organization.

This role is responsible for enabling integrated planning, improving predictability, and driving portfolio transparency through scalable PMO frameworks, data infrastructure, analytics, and reporting - including robust financial modeling, budget governance, and investment performance tracking. This individual will serve as a strategic operations partner to R&D, Finance, and PMO Leadership, ensuring there is a single-source of truth to enable portfolio insights and decisions.

Key Responsibilities:

Portfolio Governance & PMO Standardization

• Design and implement standardized PMO processes, tools, and governance frameworks across R&D.
• Establish integrated planning processes that connect strategy, resource planning, timelines, and execution milestones.
• Drive adoption of best practices for stage-gate governance, risk management, and cross-functional alignment.
• Lead continuous improvement initiatives to enhance operational rigor, predictability, and accountability.

Budget Governance & Financial Modeling

• Establish phase-appropriate budget frameworks for projects at each stage-gate, defining level of estimate rigor
• Define and maintain a standardized process for project budget creation, baseline-setting, and adjustment ensuring consistency in how budgets are structured and tracked across the portfolio
• Implement mechanisms to measure and report budget adherence at the project level, including variance analysis, earned value metrics, and escalation thresholds for material deviations
• Partners with Finance to align on capitalization and expense treatment, ensure accurate project cost coding and support close and accrual processes 
• Support business case development by providing standardized templates NPV/ IRR modeling, and scenario analysis

Portfolio Management Systems & Data Infrastructure

• Own and evolve the R&D portfolio management database, ensuring data accuracy, integrity, and usability.
• Define data standards, KPIs, and portfolio health metrics including financial KPIs such as cost-to-market, forecast accuracy, and budget accuracy.
• Lead vision for automated dashboards and trending analyses to provide real-time insights to leadership.
• Enable scalable reporting capabilities through tools and systems optimization.

Portfolio Insights, Prioritization & Reporting

• Create portfolio views to support investment decisions, resource allocation, and strategic trade-offs.
• Work with PMO portfolio leads to develop executive-ready reporting packages (monthly/quarterly) highlighting progress, risks, financial performance and trends.
• Translate complex data into clear, actionable insights for senior stakeholders.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor’s degree in Biology or equivalent.  MS or PhD in Biological Sciences preferred.
• Minimum of 10 years of program management experience in biotech space and educational background in molecular biology or genetics testing.
• Experience as FP&A or Finance Manager supporting Engineering or Product organizations desirable.
• Certification or formal training in Program or Project Management and experience using resource management tools is a big plus.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES:

• Strong knowledge of creative workflows, project management tools and processes.
• Experience compiling GANTT charts and project plans.
• Experience with product development.
• Familiar with design control is a plus.
• Proficiency in financial modeling, budget management, and portfolio financial analysis; experience with NPV, cost-to-market, and forecast accuracy methodologies.
• Comfort working with large datasets and financial systems; experience with portfolio management platforms (e.g., Planisware, Smartsheet, Oracle, SAP) and BI tools (e.g. Tableau, Power BI) is a plus.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to establish and build productive relationships.
• Excellent communication within the project teams as well as with diverse stakeholders, including top level management.
• Excellent organization and time management/multi-tasking skills (comfortable in an ambiguous and fast-paced environment, operating at both strategic and tactical levels).

Natera™ is a global leader in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) testing, dedicated to oncology, women’s health, and organ health. Our aim is to make personalized genetic testing and diagnostics part of the standard of care to protect health and enable earlier and more targeted interventions that lead to longer, healthier lives.

The Natera team consists of highly dedicated statisticians, geneticists, doctors, laboratory scientists, business professionals, software engineers and many other professionals from world-class institutions, who care deeply for our work and each other. When you join Natera, you’ll work hard and grow quickly. Working alongside the elite of the industry, you’ll be stretched and challenged, and take pride in being part of a company that is changing the landscape of genetic disease management.