Medical Affairs Director, EMEA

Medical Affairs Director, EMEA

About the job

Drive medical excellence. Shape strategy. Elevate impact across a region.

We’re seeking a senior medical leader to own and operationalize the regional medical strategy across EMEA—ensuring our science is credible, clinically relevant, and compliantly executed from Global strategy to CBU impact. You will be the medical authority for the Zone: steward of the scientific narrative, guardian of medical governance, and catalyst for high quality evidence and external engagement.

You will translate innovation into clinical value, shaping practice and policy across diverse health systems while enabling CBUs to deliver gold standard medical excellence at the point of care.

Your Mission

• Define and execute EMEA medical strategy aligned to Global priorities; ensure country‑level adaptation and rigorous governance.
• Elevate external scientific credibility through prioritized congress presence, peer‑reviewed publications, high‑quality scientific exchange, and guideline‑oriented activities.
• Advance evidence generation addressing clinically meaningful gaps and supporting clinical practice, access, and policy.
• Strengthen medical governance across Global–Zone–CBU interfaces to reduce risk, duplication, and ambiguity.
• Build a high‑performing medical community of practice that shares playbooks, accelerates launches, and raises the bar on execution quality.

Job responsibilities

1) Scientific & Medical Strategy Ownership

• Own the Zone medical strategy for the nutrition portfolio; define the disease area scientific narrative, value story, and claims guardrails in alignment with Global.
• Translate strategy into country specific medical plans including clear objectives, external engagement roadmaps, evidence priorities, and congress/publication plans.
• Chair crossfunctional Medical Strategy Boards to ensure clinical relevance of brand strategy, messaging consistency, and compliant activation.

2) Evidence Generation & Publications

• Co-define the regional evidence roadmap to address prioritized data gaps and inform guidelines, clinical practice, and access.
• Oversee publication planning and execution with timely, high quality, and ethical authorship practices.
• Partner with biostatistics, market access, and safety to ensure methodological rigor, patient relevance, and risk benefit clarity.

3) External Scientific Leadership & Medical Education

• Set the KOL/Thought Leader strategy: identification, mapping, engagement objectives, and compliant scientific exchange plans across EMEA.
• Elevate our presence at top tier congresses and in medical societies, coordinating symposia, data presentations, advisory boards, and medical education aligned to unmet needs.
• Serve as senior medical spokesperson for the Zone; build trust with clinical leaders, professional associations, and policy stakeholders.

4) Launch Excellence & Market Shaping (Medical)

• Colead launch excellence with clear medical milestones, readiness assessments, medical training, scientific platform deployment, and claims substantiation.
• Shape evidence based market development in priority indications/settings (e.g., allergy, critical care, enteral nutrition), grounded in guidelines and best practice.
• Ensure field medical excellence (MSL strategy, territory planning, scientific training, insights capture) and robust impact measurement.

5) Medical Governance, Compliance & Risk Management

• Strengthen medical governance across Global–Zone–CBU: SOPs, decision rights, review committees, and compliant material approval.
• Ensure high standards in scientific exchange, medical review, pharmacovigilance/safety signal escalation (as applicable), and risk mitigation.
• Partner with Regulatory, Quality, and Legal/Ethics & Compliance to uphold external standards and internal policies.

6) Insights to Action

• Build a systematic insights engine that informs strategy pivots, evidence priorities, and educational initiatives.
• Convert insights to actionable updates for Global brand/medical teams and provide clear direction to CBUs.

7) People & Community Leadership

• Lead and coach senior medical talent across markets; upskill teams in scientific communications, external engagement, and evidence literacy.
• Run EMEA Communities of Practice with repeatable playbooks and peer review of plans and outputs.

8) Operational Excellence & Metrics

• Define medical KPIs (scientific engagement quality, publication/citation metrics, study delivery, insights to actions, medical governance cycle time).
• Drive operational discipline in planning, budget stewardship, vendor management, and interlock with commercial—while preserving medical independence.

About you

Education & Credentials

• Advanced degree: MD, PharmD, PhD (or equivalent clinical/scientific degree) required/preferred based on market; additional training in nutrition, paediatrics, allergy, intensive/critical care, or gastroenterology an advantage.

Experience

• 12+ years in Medical Affairs (or combined clinical/industry), including regional leadership and people leadership experience.
• Proven ownership of medical strategy, evidence generation, and publication planning at regional scale.
• Demonstrated success leading KOL engagement, congress strategy, and medical education across multiple countries with diverse health systems.
• Strong exposure to RWE/observational research and collaboration with HEOR/Market Access to inform policy, guidelines, and access.
• Track record in medical governance and compliant crossfunctional collaboration (Regulatory, Safety, Legal/E&C, Commercial).

Capabilities

• Exceptional ability to translate science into clinical and access relevant value.
• Skilled at influencing without authority in complex matrices and guiding Global–Zone–CBU alignment.
• Analytical and outcome driven, comfortable with dashboards and metrics that reflect medical quality and impact.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; multilingual proficiency is a plus.

Mindset

• Scientific rigor with pragmatism, decisive, accountable, and purpose driven.
• Builder of high trust, high performing teams who can both set direction and roll up sleeves to deliver.

About Danone

Onze visie One Planet. One Health. legt de cruciale verbinding tussen het welzijn van de mens en de gezondheid van de planeet.