Delivery Lead for CP R&D IT

Syngenta Crop Protection is a leader in agricultural innovation, bringing breakthrough technologies and solutions that enable farmers to grow productively and sustainably. We offer a leading portfolio of crop protection solutions for plant and soil health, as well as digital solutions that transform the decision-making capabilities of farmers. Our 17,900 employees serve to advance agriculture in more than 90 countries around the world. Syngenta Crop Protection is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, and is part of the Syngenta Group. 

Our employees reflect the diversity of our customers, the markets where we operate and the communities which we serve. No matter what your position, you will have a vital role in safely feeding the world and taking care of our planet. Join us and help shape the future of agriculture. 

We are seeking a Programme & Scientific Informatics Delivery Lead to orchestrate the delivery of strategic, cross-functional digital initiatives and scientific informatics capabilities across Crop Protection R&D IT. The role coordinates delivery across multiple product-oriented delivery (PoD) teams, products and platforms—including Bioinformatics, Cheminformatics, Computational Biology and related digital science capabilities—to help accelerate active-ingredient discovery from small molecules to biologicals and emerging modalities.

Working within our engineering operating model, you will partner closely with Business Analysts, Lead Product Managers, Technical Leads, Business Process Owners, DevOps teams, vendors and scientific stakeholders. You will ensure that roadmaps are aligned, prioritised work is delivered incrementally, dependencies and risks are actively managed, and capabilities transition effectively into adoption and support.

Beyond initiative delivery, you will establish and steward delivery best practices, standards and tooling across internal teams and external delivery managers, building consistency, capability and transparency across the organisation.

Accountabilities

• Orchestrate delivery of multi-PoD strategic initiatives and scientific informatics capabilities across multiple teams, products and platforms.
• Develop and maintain delivery roadmaps with Product Managers and Technical Leads, aligning PoD roadmaps to strategic priorities, shared outcomes and early, incremental value delivery.
• Drive delivery of prioritised work packages across products and platforms, ensuring effective planning, transparent execution and successful business outcomes.
• Own and optimise delivery processes, including Agile ceremonies, risk tracking, dependency management and delivery planning.
• Identify, track and actively resolve cross-team and cross-PoD dependencies, delivery impediments and vendor issues; act as an escalation point by connecting the right stakeholders for timely resolution.
• Create and maintain comprehensive programme-level visibility of progress, risks, dependencies and decisions for senior stakeholders, escalating when required.
• Establish and maintain delivery metrics and reporting to provide transparency, support data-driven action and track realised business value against outcomes defined at inception.
• Manage and coordinate external vendor relationships and delivery commitments in support of strategic initiatives.
• Facilitate cross-functional collaboration among scientific, product, technical and business stakeholders, and support the effective transition of delivered capabilities into adoption and support.
• Actively contribute to the delivery management community through best practices, standards, tooling, peer development and reuse of existing capabilities and components where appropriate.
• Oversee budget allocation and resource planning for multi-PoD initiatives, ensuring optimal utilisation of funds and alignment with strategic investment priorities.
• Assess and drive continuous improvement in delivery capability maturity across teams, identifying gaps and implementing targeted development programmes to enhance delivery excellence.
• Establish and maintain stakeholder communication strategies and reporting cadences, ensuring timely and transparent engagement with executive sponsors, scientific leaders and delivery partners.
• When required, lead strategic or time-critical programmes outside the standard PoD operating model, adapting delivery approaches to the context.

Role Dimensions

• Business impact: Key role orchestrating multi-PoD strategic initiatives and coordinating application-development teams, with budgets of up to US$5 million per year.
• People: Close alignment with Business Analysts, Lead Product Managers, Technical Leads, Business Process Owners, DevOps teams, scientific stakeholders and internal/external delivery teams. No direct FTE reports.
• Geographic scope: Global.
• Complexity: High stakeholder-management, matrix-design and cross-functional-leadership requirements.

**Required Qualifications**

• Experience leading complex IT delivery initiatives using Agile methodologies, including Scrum and Kanban.
• Proven track record of coordinating multiple IT teams across different workstreams.
• Comprehensive understanding of the software delivery lifecycle.
• Experience delivering technology capabilities in scientific, R&D, data-intensive or complex enterprise environments.
• Working knowledge of scientific informatics, R&D technology or data-intensive scientific environments, with familiarity in Bioinformatics, Cheminformatics, Computational Biology or related fields.
• Excellent stakeholder-management skills, with a demonstrated ability to influence at all organisational levels.
• Strong track record of managing programme risks, dependencies and delivery impediments.
• Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to adapt for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Fluency in written and spoken English.
• Experience managing budgets and resource allocation for technology initiatives.
• Demonstrated capability in vendor management and external delivery partner coordination.

**Desirable Experience and Qualifications**

• SAFe Agile and Release Train Engineer (RTE) experience.
• Understanding of cloud delivery environments.
• Proactive issue-identification and resolution skills.
• Postgraduate degree in a STEM discipline.
• Experience in agricultural R&D, life sciences, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology or related industries.
• Experience promoting diverse thinking and experimentation.
• Familiarity with delivery metrics frameworks and business value realisation tracking.
• Experience in assessing and improving delivery capability maturity across teams.

**What You Will Gain**

• Exposure to business strategy and a pathway into broader strategic leadership roles.
• Deep understanding of Crop Protection R&D and digital science.
• The opportunity to build authentic, trust-based relationships with sponsors, subject-matter experts and managers.

Why Syngenta?

• Meaningful impact: help build technology that supports scientific innovation and sustainable agriculture.

• Complex, modern challenges: work on high-scale platforms and systems with room for technical judgement.

• Collaborative environment: partner with global engineering, R&D and product communities.

• Growth: broaden your influence through challenging work, visible outcomes and a global network.