Nick Rivera

Public protector: Nick Rivera

School/College: Fox School of Business
Degree/Year: BBA, management information systems, 2017
Hometown: Havertown, Pennsylvania
Current Job Title: Director, AI and tech strategy lead, Pfizer vaccines
Current Employer: Pfizer

It was August 2021, and COVID-19 was raging when pharmaceutical giant Pfizer tapped Nick Rivera, FOX ’17, to help the country turn the page. The company had just received the first-ever U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for a COVID-19 vaccine and tasked 150 employees across the country with distributing it to the public. But they needed support—new systems to provide public information, schedule vaccinations and track who had received the shots. That’s where Nick stepped in.

As manager of Pfizer’s digital COVID-19 operations, Nick oversaw a team of system managers who served as a go-between for agents in the field and software developers. The task was unprecedented, requiring Nick to oversee processes that would typically take Pfizer six months or more to complete but do it in just weeks. “It’s very difficult to get massive corporations to perform agile operations, like a startup. But that’s what we did,” Nick says.

“The pandemic was rampant, and Pfizer was developing the vaccine rapidly. We had to do what typically would take three or four years of work in just six months because we didn’t have a choice. The world needed it.”
—Nick Rivera
Director, AI and Tech Strategy Lead, Pfizer Vaccines

Nick Rivera holds up a vile of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.

A caption will be added that provides more context around what Nick is holding in this image.

Photography by Ryan S. Brandenberg

Nick leaned on experiences at Temple, where Fox Management Information Systems Chair Mart Doyle stressed taking a flexible and practical approach to the discipline, avoiding getting bogged down with unattainable tasks. During senior year, a capstone project requiring Nick and classmates to dynamically pitch a business idea, as well as an internship with a Fishtown-based sporting goods startup, bestowed in young Nick additional confidence that he could get big things done quickly.

Temple’s affordability, the prestige of its business school and its location originally drew the Havertown native to North Broad over other college options in the region.

At Pfizer, Nick has continued to climb the corporate ladder, earning four promotions in eight years. His remit now entails leading AI strategy for Pfizer’s multibillion-dollar vaccines portfolio, which includes COVID-19, RSV, pneumococcal pneumonia, and pipeline assets for a flu-COVID combo and Lyme disease. He loves working at the intersection of business, technology and public health: The tools he builds help Americans access and track protective immunizations while also adding value for the company.