Associate Director Legal Technology

Job Description Summary
Location: Hyderabad, India

#LI-Hybrid

Shape the future of how a global Legal organisation works by leading its Legal Technology strategy, team and innovation portfolio. As Associate Director, you will turn Legal priorities and emerging technology opportunities into secure, scalable and sustainable solutions across contract lifecycle management, workflow automation, digital platforms, data and responsibly governed artificial intelligence. You will partner with senior Legal and technology leaders to build capabilities, guide investment decisions and deliver measurable improvements in user experience, effectiveness and business value.

Job Description

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Responsibilities:

•     Lead and develop a multidisciplinary Legal Technology team across functional and technical disciplines, setting clear direction while strengthening leadership capability, accountability, collaboration, quality, innovation and continuous learning.

•     Define and deliver the multi-year Legal Technology strategy, operating model and roadmap, aligning investment, capacity and delivery priorities with Legal Innovation Hub objectives, Legal business needs and enterprise technology direction.

•     Partner with Legal leadership, practice areas and technology teams to understand legal processes and user needs, identify transformation opportunities and turn emerging technologies and business challenges into scalable solutions with clear outcomes.

•     Govern the portfolio across contract lifecycle management, legal workflow automation, digital platforms, data and artificial intelligence-enabled initiatives, managing product ownership, interdependencies, risk, budget, delivery performance, adoption and executive reporting throughout the capability lifecycle.

•     Direct the design and responsible scaling of legal platforms and artificial intelligence-enabled capabilities, including knowledge solutions, retrieval-augmented generation, agents and agentic workflows, ensuring appropriate architecture, security, data protection, compliance and human oversight.

•     Lead investment, sourcing and commercial decisions by evaluating build versus buy options, developing business cases, assessing total cost of ownership and return on investment, and managing vendors across sourcing, due diligence, contracting, licensing, service levels and performance.

•     Drive end-to-end delivery and sustainable adoption from discovery, design and build through testing, deployment, hypercare and operational support, working with Data, Digital and Information Technology, Enterprise Architecture, Information Security, Privacy and Legal stakeholders to maintain quality, service governance and measurable business value.

Essential for the role:

- Bachelor’s or master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.
- 15+ years of significant leadership experience in legal technology, enterprise technology, digital transformation, product leadership, artificial intelligence-enabled transformation or portfolio delivery within a complex global organisation.
- Proven experience leading multidisciplinary teams and managers, including organisation design, talent development, performance management, succession planning and building high-performing teams.
- Strong Legal Technology experience with substantive knowledge of contract lifecycle management, workflow automation, document and knowledge management, templates, clause libraries, playbooks, integrations, data migration, reporting, adoption and support.
- Demonstrated experience leading complex technology and AI-enabled solutions from concept, architecture and business case through engineering, integration, production deployment, operationalization and continuous improvement, while guiding technical teams and ensuring solutions are secure, scalable and production-ready.
- Strong technical and architectural knowledge across cloud technologies, enterprise integration, application lifecycle management, Microsoft Power Platform, Copilot Studio, Azure AI, RAG and agentic solution patterns, with the credibility to challenge designs, guide technical decisions.
- Practical understanding of responsible AI, information security, data privacy, records management and compliance considerations applicable to confidential and regulated legal information.
- Proven technology leadership across enterprise solution architecture and complex technology delivery, including cloud platforms, applications, application programming interfaces, integrations, identity and access, data, development operations, continuous integration and continuous delivery, Microsoft Power Platform, Copilot Studio and Azure.
- Strong portfolio, delivery and commercial governance experience covering demand prioritisation, capacity and dependency management, financial oversight, risk, quality assurance, build versus buy assessment, vendor management, investment cases, total cost of ownership and return on investment.
- Fluent written and spoken English, with strong stakeholder management, influencing and executive communication skills and the ability to work effectively across Legal, technology and business leadership, cultures, functions and time zones.

Desirable for the role:

- An additional bachelor’s degree in law
- Experience in pharmaceutical, life sciences or another highly regulated multinational environment, preferably within a global capability centre, shared services or hub model.
- Experience establishing, transforming or scaling a Legal Technology, automation or artificial intelligence Centre of Excellence or enablement capability, or relevant credentials in programme or portfolio management, product ownership, Agile delivery, change management, Microsoft technologies, responsible artificial intelligence or a leading contract lifecycle management platform.

Benefits & Rewards:

At Novartis, we’re committed to reimagining medicine together - and rewarding the people who make it happen.

Read our brochure to learn more about our global total rewards offering: https://www.novartis.com/sites/novartis_com/files/novartis-life-handbook.pdf

Note: Benefits and compensation may vary by country and are subject to local legal requirements, including provisions of collective bargaining agreements where applicable. A full overview of your compensation package, including any relevant collective bargaining agreement details applicable to your role based on your employment location and Novartis employer entity, will be communicated separately to you during the application process.

Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion:

Novartis is committed to building an outstanding, inclusive work environment and diverse teams representative of the patients and communities we serve.

Accessibility and Accommodation:

Novartis is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If, because of a medical condition or disability, you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the recruitment process, or in order to perform the essential functions of a position, please send an e-mail to [email protected] and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information. Please include the job requisition number in your message.

Skills Desired
Adaptability, Business Acumen, Critical Thinking, Curious Mindset, Decision Making, Law, Legal Acumen, Legal Communication, Legal Issues, Legal Research, Legal Risk Analysis, Legal Support, Legal Writing, Negotiation, Persuasion, Proactive Planning, Problem Solving, Relationship Building, Stakeholder Management, Strategic Thinking