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About the Role

Lead the company’s federal states (Länder) government affairs strategy in Germany, shaping engagement with state governments, ministries, and state chancelleries while ensuring close alignment with national policy priorities. Serve as the key interface between state-level stakeholders and internal partners, driving coherent policy narratives and high-impact stakeholder engagement.

Responsibilities

• Own Federal States segmentation and prioritisation based on political relevance, policy impact, company footprint, and strategic objectives.
• Serve as primary relationship owner for 1–2 priority federal states, engaging directly with State Ministers, State Secretaries, senior staff, and relevant parliamentary stakeholders.
• Maintain light-touch oversight across all federal states to ensure consistent messaging, early risk identification, and opportunity sensing.
• Ensure tight alignment with the National Policy team: translate national positions into regional narratives, surface Federal States insights for federal advocacy, and prevent fragmentation of messages and positions.
• Oversee narrative assets and toolkits (message grids, framing documents, federal states specific value propositions, executive briefing packs).
• Apply strong political judgement and antenna; engage credibly up to minister level in bilaterals, roundtables, and strategic dialogues.
• Design and deliver high-impact engagement formats (political roundtables, ministerial site visits, cross-sector coalition meetings).
• Own and steer the federal states policy dashboard: monitor developments, drive prioritisation, ensure decision transparency, and provide regular updates to Policy and senior leadership.
• Drive cross-functional orchestration across Market Access, Communications, Business Units, Medical, Patient Engagement, and New Products.
• Own specific policy topic(s) as part of the German Policy Team.
• Lead and develop a team of 2–3 Local Governmental Affairs Managers.

Requirements

• Significant experience in Government Affairs and/or political institutions, ministries, or parliamentary processes.
• Strategic acumen linking federal states and national policy dynamics to business priorities and translating them into coherent, compliant strategies.
• High political sensitivity and integrity, combined with sound judgement, discretion, and the ability to remain effective under pressure.
• Ability to translate complexity into actionable guidance.
• Excellent communication skills, including structured writing and executive-level briefing capabilities.
• Fluent in German and English, both written and spoken.
• Willingness to travel regularly within Germany for stakeholder engagement, roundtables, and site visits.
• People with severe disabilities and their equivalents will be given preference if they are equally qualified.

Skills

• Crisis Management
• Detail-Oriented
• Ecological Impact Assessments
• Environmental Policy
• Event Management
• Innovative Solutions
• Laboratory Compliance
• Legal Regulatory Compliance
• Media Communications
• Public Speaking
• Recordkeeping
• Risk Management
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Sustainability Practices
• Technical Writing
• Proven exposure to federal states politics in Germany
• Strong matrix leadership and stakeholder orchestration skills

Location

• Munich
• Berlin

Work Type

• Hybrid

Experience Level

• Senior

About the Company

• Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company. No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails.