Associate Director, Chief of Staff – People Experience

Position Summary
The Associate Director, Chief of Staff – People Experience (PE) serves as a strategic partner and trusted advisor to the PE Leadership Team, driving the execution and acceleration of the People Experience vision. This role is a core member of the PE leadership team, responsible for optimizing the PE organization itself — how it operates, prioritizes, plans, and delivers against its agenda. The Chief of Staff acts as an integrator, communicator, and accelerator, translating PE's vision into tangible outcomes and ensuring the PE team functions at its highest potential.
Note: This role is focused on PE organizational optimization — not broad HR optimization, which is a shared accountability across the entire PE team. The Chief of Staff ensures PE as an organization runs with excellence, coherence, and strategic clarity.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Leadership & Vision Acceleration
Partner with the Head of People Experience and PE leadership to define, refine, and cascade the PE vision and multi-year strategy.
Identify and resolve strategic gaps, dependencies, and opportunities that affect execution of the PE agenda.
Serve as a thought partner to senior PE leaders, bringing an enterprise perspective and anticipating organizational needs before they arise.
Synthesize complex information and distill it into clear, compelling narratives for leadership and stakeholders.
PE Organizational Optimization
Own the continuous improvement of how the PE organization operates — including how the team is structured to deliver, how decisions get made, and how work gets done.
Drive clarity on roles, accountabilities, and interdependencies across PE sub-functions to eliminate duplication and increase team effectiveness.
Identify operational inefficiencies within PE and implement scalable solutions to improve team performance and output quality.
Partner with PE leaders to assess and evolve the operating model as the team's scope and strategy evolve.
Note: Broad HR optimization (e.g., improving HR programs and services for the enterprise) is a shared responsibility across the entire PE team. This role is specifically accountable for optimizing the PE organization itself.
Prioritization & Portfolio Management
Lead and manage the PE Leadership Team's portfolio of strategic initiatives, ensuring alignment to top priorities and business outcomes.
Drive rigorous prioritization frameworks to focus PE resources on the highest-value work.
Track progress against strategic goals and OKRs; escalate risks and recommend course corrections as needed.
Partner with Finance and HR Operations on PE resource planning and investment decisions.
Rhythms of Business & Operating Model
Design, own, and continuously improve the rhythms of business for the PE organization, including leadership team meetings, planning cycles, business reviews, and all-hands communications.
Prepare and curate agendas, pre-reads, and follow-up actions for PE Leadership Team meetings to ensure productive, outcome-oriented sessions.
Coordinate and manage annual and quarterly planning processes, connecting PE plans to broader AbbVie enterprise cycles.
Build and maintain a PE operating calendar that ensures key milestones, deliverables, and decisions are managed proactively.
Cross-Functional Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement
Serve as a connector across PE sub-functions, breaking down silos and ensuring integrated execution of the PE strategy.
Represent the PE Leadership Team in cross-functional forums, working groups, and enterprise planning processes.
Build strong relationships with key stakeholders across HR, Business HR, Finance, Communications, and other enabling functions.
Communications & Change Enablement
Develop compelling internal communications for the PE organization, including leadership messages, town halls, strategy updates, and culture-building content.
Champion change management best practices to support adoption of new PE programs, processes, and ways of working within the PE team.
Elevate the PE team's visibility and brand across the enterprise through strategic storytelling and engagement.
Team Effectiveness & Culture
Foster a high-performing, inclusive team culture within the PE Leadership Team and broader PE organization.
Lead special projects and initiatives that strengthen PE organizational effectiveness, engagement, and capability building.
Act as a culture carrier for the PE vision — modeling AbbVie's values and the behaviors the PE team aspires to enable.
Required
Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Development, or a related field.
7+ years of progressive experience in HR, strategy, operations, or a related discipline.
Demonstrated experience operating at a senior level and influencing without direct authority.
Proven ability to manage complex, cross-functional initiatives in a fast-paced, matrixed environment.
Strong executive communication skills — both written and verbal — with the ability to synthesize complexity for senior audiences.
High learning agility, intellectual curiosity, and comfort navigating ambiguity.
Preferred
MBA or advanced degree.
Prior Chief of Staff, HR Strategy, or HR Business Partner experience at a large, matrixed organization.
Experience in the pharmaceutical, biotech, or life sciences industry.
Familiarity with organizational design, change management, and workforce planning methodologies.
Competencies
Strategic Thinking & Business Acumen
Influence & Stakeholder Management
Executive Presence & Communication
Execution Discipline & Prioritization
Collaboration & Integration
Learning Agility & Innovation Mindset
Inclusive Leadership
Why People Experience at AbbVie
The People Experience team is at the heart of how AbbVie attracts, develops, and retains the world-class talent needed to deliver on its mission. As a member of the PE Leadership Team, the Associate Director, Chief of Staff will have a front-row seat to enterprise-wide transformation — with a unique opportunity to shape how the PE organization operates and delivers its vision for AbbVie's people now and into the future.

Employment type
Full-time

Work arrangement
Hybrid