GPS Portfolio Strategy and Governance

Job description

This is where your work makes a difference. At Baxter, we believe every person—regardless of who they are or where they are from—deserves a chance to live a healthy life. It was our founding belief in 1931 and continues to be our guiding principle. We are redefining healthcare delivery to make a greater impact today, tomorrow, and beyond. Our Baxter colleagues are united by our Mission to Save and Sustain Lives. Together, our community is driven by a culture of courage, trust, and collaboration. Every individual is empowered to take ownership and make a meaningful impact. We strive for efficient and effective operations, and we hold each other accountable for delivering exceptional results. Here, you will find more than just a job—you will find purpose and pride. Your role at Baxter The Senior Director, GPS Portfolio Strategy & Governance is an enterprise transformation and portfolio leader accountable for translating Baxter’s Growth & Performance System (GPS) strategy into a focused, integrated portfolio that delivers measurable enterprise value. This role combines 80/20-based portfolio optimization with rigorous transformation-office governance to simplify complexity, concentrate resources on the vital few priorities, and accelerate execution across businesses and functions. The Senior Director governs a large, cross-functional portfolio of 800+ initiatives spanning process improvement, business transformation, capability building, digitization, and product/SKU rationalization. Product and SKU work remains an important portfolio workstream, but the role governs it through the same prioritization, stage-gate, benefit-tracking, and accountability mechanisms applied to all other initiatives rather than directly leading SKU execution. Partnering with senior leaders across Finance, HR, Quality, Supply Chain, Commercial, Digital/IT, and Reporting & Analytics, this leader drives integrated planning, disciplined decision making, resource alignment, benefits realization, and sustained adoption of GPS ways of working. What will you be doing Enterprise Portfolio Strategy: Translate GPS and enterprise priorities into an integrated, multi-year portfolio roadmap with clear outcomes, owners, milestones, dependencies, and decision points; maintain focus on the critical few initiatives that advance enterprise value creators and KPIs. 80/20 Portfolio Optimization: Apply Pareto-based segmentation and 80/20 capabilities across customers, products, processes, projects, and investments to identify the vital few opportunities, simplify complexity, stop or reshape low-value work, and redirect resources toward the highest-return priorities. Portfolio Governance & Operating Model: Design and lead enterprise governance for an 800+ initiative portfolio, including intake, prioritization, stage gates, decision rights, resource alignment, risk and issue management, escalation, and executive reporting. Product and SKU Rationalization Governance: Govern product and SKU rationalization as a critical portfolio workstream by establishing decision criteria, milestones, ownership, benefit expectations, and escalation paths; ensure accountable business and functional teams lead execution and integrate decisions with customer, commercial, supply chain, quality, and financial considerations. Benefits Realization & Performance Management: Establish standards for defining, validating, and tracking financial and operational benefits across Operating Income, Revenue Growth, ROIC, Free Cash Flow, cost avoidance, productivity, and customer satisfaction; reinforce disciplined follow-through, action closure, and a strong Say/Do ratio. Executive Governance & Operating Cadence: Lead portfolio reviews and GPS governance forums using standardized agendas, scorecards, bowling charts, decision logs, and escalation paths to increase transparency, surface risks early, accelerate countermeasures, and enable timely leadership decisions. Cross-Functional Execution & Dependency Management: Orchestrate workstreams across businesses, functions, and geographies; proactively manage dependencies, remove barriers, and ensure initiatives remain aligned to enterprise priorities and expected outcomes. Portfolio Mining, Scaling & Standardization: Identify repeatable initiatives, scalable solutions, and proven practices within the portfolio; standardize and deploy them across the enterprise to accelerate value capture, reduce duplication, and improve consistency. GPS Capability Building: Partner with Operational Excellence leaders to embed GPS Methods and Standards—including Lean, Six Sigma/DMAIC, kaizen, A3 thinking, root-cause analysis, visual management, daily management, and Hoshin Kanri—through playbooks, coaching, training, and communities of practice. Change Leadership & Adoption: Partner with HR and Communications to build stakeholder alignment, reinforce leader behaviors and standard work, measure adoption, and sustain a culture of simplification, accountability, continuous improvement, and enterprise focus. Data, Analytics & Tooling Enablement: Partner with Finance, Reporting & Analytics, Data Governance, Digital, and IT to enable trusted data, segmented P&Ls, dashboards, and insights, and to simplify work through process redesign, digitization, and automation. People Leadership: Lead and develop a high-performing team and matrixed network of portfolio and transformation leaders; set expectations for execution rigor, coaching, talent development, and succession depth. Typical Activities Conduct enterprise 80/20 analyses across customers, products, profit pools, processes, and initiatives to inform portfolio choices and investment tradeoffs. Chair executive portfolio, stage-gate, kaizen, and strategy review forums; frame decisions, challenge assumptions, resolve escalations, and confirm accountable owners and actions. Maintain the integrated transformation roadmap, portfolio health view, benefit scorecards, risk profile, and dependencies across major GPS workstreams. Review product and SKU rationalization progress as part of the broader portfolio, ensuring business-led execution, cross-functional alignment, and transparent value delivery. Mine the portfolio for scalable solutions and enforce enterprise deployment of repeatable practices, including targeted selling and customer-value strategies where applicable. Provide concise, decision-ready updates and recommendations to senior executives on progress, outcomes, risks, tradeoffs, and resource needs. What will you bring : Key Skills Enterprise and Strategic Thinking: Connect strategy, portfolio choices, operating model, and execution across businesses and functions. Portfolio Governance: Build and run disciplined governance, prioritization, stage-gate, risk, resource, and benefits-management processes at enterprise scale. 80/20 and Analytical Leadership: Apply segmentation, Pareto analysis, financial insight, and fact-based challenge to identify leverage points and simplify complexity. Executive Influence: Align senior stakeholders, frame tradeoffs, challenge constructively, and translate complex information into clear recommendations and decisions. Transformation Leadership: Mobilize cross-functional teams, manage interdependencies, accelerate execution, and sustain adoption in a highly matrixed environment. Performance and Accountability: Establish clear outcomes, owners, measures, and operating rhythms that convert decisions into measurable results. People and Capability Building: Develop leaders and teams through coaching, standard work, disciplined problem solving, and intentional delegation. Bachelor’s degree required in Business, Engineering, Operations, Supply Chain, Finance, or a related field; MBA or other advanced degree preferred. 12+ years of progressive leadership experience in enterprise portfolio management, transformation, operational excellence, strategy, and/or large-scale change across multiple functions and geographies. Demonstrated experience governing complex, high-value portfolios, including prioritization, stage gates, risk and issue management, resource alignment, benefits tracking, and executive reporting. Strong working knowledge of 80/20 methodology and GPS Methods and Standards, including portfolio segmentation, Lean, Six Sigma/DMAIC, kaizen, A3 thinking, root-cause analysis, visual management, daily management, and Hoshin Kanri/goal deployment. Experience applying these methods to enterprise portfolio optimization, governance, and transformation is strongly preferred. Proven ability to translate strategy into executable roadmaps and measurable outcomes, with strong financial acumen and experience partnering with Finance on value cases and benefits realization. Exceptional executive communication, stakeholder management, and influence skills, with demonstrated success aligning senior leaders in highly matrixed organizations. Demonstrated people leadership, coaching, and talent development experience, including leadership of direct teams and matrixed networks. Six Sigma Green Belt, Black Belt, or Master Black Belt certification preferred. Leadership Competencies Enterprise Mindset: Makes portfolio tradeoffs that maximize end-to-end enterprise value rather than optimizing individual functions or workstreams. Action with Alignment: Creates clarity on outcomes, decision rights, owners, measures, and follow-through. Data-Driven Judgment: Uses trusted facts and financial and operational metrics to surface problems early and guide choices. Change Leadership: Builds commitment through a compelling narrative, active listening, coaching, and reinforcement of leader routines. Systems Thinking: Connects people, process, performance, technology, and portfolio dependencies to deliver sustained results. Inclusive Leadership: Seeks diverse perspectives and creates an environment in which constructive challenge improves decisions and outcomes. What This Role Is Expected to Do Turn GPS strategy into a focused enterprise portfolio that accelerates execution and delivers measurable value. Focus the portfolio: Translate enterprise priorities into an integrated roadmap and use 80/20 thinking to concentrate resources on the vital few initiatives. Establish disciplined governance: Set clear intake, prioritization, stage-gate, decision-right, risk, escalation, and reporting standards across 800+ initiatives. Drive value realization: Define, validate, and track financial and operational benefits, ensuring accountable owners, action closure, and a strong Say/Do ratio. Enable faster execution: Orchestrate cross-functional work, manage dependencies, remove barriers, and bring decision-ready tradeoffs to senior leaders. Scale what works: Mine the portfolio for repeatable solutions, standardize proven practices, and deploy them across businesses, functions, and geographies. Embed GPS: Strengthen GPS Methods and Standards, leader routines, capabilities, data, and tools so improvements are sustained. Expected outcomes: A simplified and transparent portfolio, faster decisions, stronger accountability, reduced duplication, better resource allocation, and measurable enterprise impact. Baxter is committed to supporting the needs for flexibility in the workplace. We do so through our flexible workplace policy which includes a required minimum number of days a week onsite. This policy provides the benefits of connecting and collaborating in-person in support of our Mission. The flexible workplace policy is subject to local laws and legal requirements. At its discretion, Baxter may decide to adjust, suspend, or discontinue as business needs change. We understand compensation is an important factor as you consider the next step in your career. At Baxter, we are committed to equitable pay for all employees, and we strive to be more transparent with our pay practices. The estimated base salary for this position is $232,000 - 319,000 annually. The estimated range is meant to reflect an anticipated salary range for the position. We may pay more or less than of the anticipated range based upon market data and other factors, all of which are subject to change. Individual pay is based on upon location, skills and expertise, experience, and other relevant factors. This position may also be eligible for discretionary bonuses, commission, and/or long-term incentive. For questions about this, our pay philosophy, and available benefits, please speak to the recruiter if you decide to apply and are selected for an interview. Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment visa at this time. US Benefits at Baxter (except for Puerto Rico) This is where your well-being matters. Baxter offers comprehensive compensation and benefits packages for eligible roles. Our health and well-being benefits include medical and dental coverage that start on day one, as well as insurance coverage for basic life, accident, short-term and long-term disability, and business travel accident insurance. Financial and retirement benefits include the Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP), with the ability to purchase company stock at a discount, and the 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan (RSP), with options for employee contributions and company matching. We also offer Flexible Spending Accounts, educational assistance programs, and time-off benefits such as paid holidays, paid time off ranging from 20 to 35 days based on length of service, family and medical leaves of absence, and paid parental leave. Additional benefits include commuting benefits, the Employee Discount Program, the Employee Assistance Program (EAP), and childcare benefits. Join us and enjoy the competitive compensation and benefits we offer to our employees. For additional information regarding Baxter US Benefits, please speak with your recruiter or visit our Benefits site: Benefits | Baxter Equal Employment Opportunity Baxter is an equal opportunity employer. Baxter evaluates qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, disability/handicap status or any other legally protected characteristic. Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal Reasonable Accommodations Baxter is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities globally. If, because of a medical condition or disability, you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application or interview process, please click on the link here and let us know the nature of your request along with your contact information. Recruitment Fraud Notice Baxter has discovered incidents of employment scams, where fraudulent parties pose as Baxter employees, recruiters, or other agents, and engage with online job seekers in an attempt to steal personal and/or financial information. To learn how you can protect yourself, review our Recruitment Fraud Notice .