Senior Director, Commercial Training

The Senior Director, Commercial Training is a strategic enterprise leader responsible for designing, executing, and continuously evolving commercial training capabilities that enable Vertex’s customer‑facing teams to deliver meaningful impact for patients living with serious diseases. This role ensures sales, account management, and other field‑based teams are equipped with deep scientific understanding, compliant messaging, and the skills required to engage customers in highly specialized, rapidly evolving therapeutic areas. 

Consistent with Vertex’s uncompromising commitment to patients, scientific excellence, and integrity, this leader partners closely with Commercial Leadership, Marketing, Medical Affairs, Market Access, Compliance, and HR to align training strategy with Vertex’s mission to create transformative medicines and support successful launches across a growing and increasingly complex portfolio. This role also ensures commercial training strategy is grounded in clearly defined selling competencies and is continuously enhanced through the thoughtful application of existing, emerging, and innovative learning technologies that accelerate skill development and field performance. 

Key Responsibilities 

Strategy & Leadership 

• Develop and own an enterprise commercial training strategy that supports Vertex’s specialty‑focused portfolio, launch cadence, and long‑term commercial ambitions. 

• Serve as a thought leader in adult learning, capability building, and performance enablement within a science‑driven, highly regulated pharmaceutical environment. 

• Build, lead, and mentor a high‑performing commercial training organization, including internal talent and external partners, in alignment with Vertex’s culture of excellence and collaboration. 

• Embed Vertex values—patient focus, innovation, integrity, and “we win” mindset—into all training philosophies, content, and delivery models. 

• Define, evolve, and maintain a commercial selling competency framework in partnership with Sales Leadership, HR, and Commercial Excellence, clearly articulating the skills, behaviors, and capabilities required for success across selling roles and career stages. 

• Ensure all commercial training strategies, curricula, and learning journeys are explicitly aligned to and mapped against core selling competencies, enabling consistent skill development, assessment, and progression. 

• Serve as an enterprise leader in identifying, evaluating, and adopting existing, new, and emerging learning technologies that enhance skill acquisition, practice, reinforcement, and measurement. 

Training Design & Delivery 

• Oversee the design and delivery of onboarding, disease state, product, selling skills, leadership, and advanced capability training across U.S. and, as appropriate, global commercial teams. 

• Ensure training content reflects deep scientific rigor, accurate clinical data, and approved messaging, in close partnership with Medical, Legal, Regulatory, and Compliance. 

• Lead national and regional training meetings, immersive workshops, and virtual learning experiences that prepare teams for launch readiness and sustained excellence. 

• Translate complex science—across modalities such as small molecules, gene editing, and novel pain therapies—into practical, customer‑relevant learning experiences. 

• Design role‑based curricula and learning journeys that intentionally build, reinforce, and sustain core selling competencies from onboarding through advanced and leadership levels. 

• Incorporate technology‑enabled learning approaches (e.g., digital platforms, simulations, virtual learning, AI‑enabled tools) to enable practice, feedback, and real‑world skill application at scale. 

• Ensure learning experiences move beyond knowledge transfer to drive observable behavior change and skill mastery aligned with defined competency expectations. 

Commercial Enablement & Launch Excellence 

• Partner with Sales, Marketing, Market Access, and Medical Affairs to ensure training is tightly aligned to brand strategy, customer needs, and field realities in specialty markets. 

• Play a critical leadership role in new product and indication launches, supporting pre‑launch readiness, post‑launch optimization, and ongoing capability evolution. 

• Drive consistent execution of Vertex’s engagement models, messaging standards, and customer experience expectations across all field teams. 

• Support field effectiveness in environments that may include orphan diseases, site‑of‑care complexity, and high‑touch stakeholder engagement. 

Measurement & Continuous Improvement 

• Establish and monitor robust metrics that assess competency development and skill progression, including knowledge retention, skill application, behavior change, and business impact. 

• Use insights from data, field feedback, and performance outcomes to continuously refine training content, formats, and delivery approaches. 

• Leverage learning technologies, analytics, and performance data to diagnose capability gaps, personalize development, and continuously optimize training effectiveness and impact. 

Required Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree (MBA, MS, PharmD, or equivalent) strongly preferred. 

• 12+ years of experience in pharmaceutical or life sciences commercial roles, with significant leadership experience in commercial training, sales enablement, or commercial excellence. 

• 5+ years of people leadership experience, with a proven ability to develop high‑performing, mission‑driven teams. 

• Demonstrated success leading commercial training in specialty or highly scientific therapeutic areas within a regulated environment. 

• Strong working knowledge of FDA regulations, promotional compliance, and industry standards. 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Experience supporting specialty, rare disease, or complex portfolios. 

• Proven launch experience, including training for first‑in‑class or highly differentiated products. 

• Exposure to omnichannel, digital, or hybrid engagement models. 

• Experience working within global or matrixed organizations.