Associate Director, IBU Consumer Media Operations

Position Overview

Lilly’s Global Customer Office (GCO) brings together a group of teams passionate about understanding and helping customers within a complex global healthcare ecosystem. This established organization unites expertise across media, marketing, data, and technology to deliver remarkable, data-driven, end-to-end experiences that improve health outcomes across diverse geographies and therapeutic areas. 

The Associate Director, IBU Consumer Media Operations will play a critical role within Lilly’s Global Customer Office (GCO), reporting to the Sr. Director, IBU Consumer Media. This position will help build and operationalize the foundational frameworks, processes, and partnerships that enable consistent, effective, and compliant media execution across Lilly’s international markets. 

This leader will serve as the connective tissue between global strategy and local implementation, ensuring media operations are scalable, data-driven, and aligned to enterprise governance standards. They will oversee key operational components of the global media ecosystem — from framework development and agency accountability to ad tech partnerships and data integration. They will partner closely with cross-functional teams across Marketing, Digital, Procurement, Finance, and IT—as well as agency and platform partners—to deliver consistent, high-quality media operations across the IBU.  

The ideal candidate brings strong operational discipline, analytical acumen, and a collaborative mindset to drive excellence, consistency, and transparency across the paid media network. 

Key Behaviors 

• Operational Excellence: Brings structure, discipline, and rigor to global media processes. 

• Accountability & Transparency: Ensures agency and partner performance is measured, reported, and improved continuously. 

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Builds strong partnerships across media, analytics, procurement, and IT. 

• Innovation & Curiosity: Stays current on emerging ad tech, tools, and best practices to elevate global media maturity. 

• Problem Solving: Anticipates challenges, identifies root causes, and implements scalable solutions. 

Core Responsibilities 

Global Framework Development 

• Build out standardized media frameworks and operational toolkits that can be leveraged across affiliates to drive consistency, efficiency, and quality in media execution. 

• Partner with regional and local teams to ensure frameworks are adaptable to market nuances while maintaining enterprise governance. 

Agency Accountability & Performance Management 

• Oversee the global media agency performance program, including recurring audits, satisfaction surveys, and scorecards. 

• Track, assess, and report on agency delivery across key operational metrics — accuracy, timeliness, compliance, and innovation. 

• Collaborate with procurement and legal teams to ensure agencies meet contractual and compliance obligations. 

Ad Tech & Platform Management 

• Serve as a key point of contact for Lilly’s global ad tech ecosystem, including partnerships with media platforms, measurement vendors, and data partners. 

• Partner with internal IT and privacy teams to ensure platforms meet data security and compliance standards. 

• Monitor evolving technology trends to recommend future-ready solutions and integrations. 

Insights & Analytics Partnership 

• Act as the primary media liaison to Lilly’s Business Insights & Analytics (BIA) teams — both internally and within the agency. 

• Collaborate on data integration, campaign reporting, and directional performance tracking to enable insight-driven decision-making. 

• Help ensure the media organization operates with clarity on performance indicators, efficiency metrics, and learnings. 

Governance & Continuous Improvement 

• Support the Sr. Director, Global Paid Media in maintaining operational governance, compliance, and global process alignment. 

• Identify areas for improvement in workflows, tools, and partner management, proactively recommending refinements that improve scalability and effectiveness. 

• Partner with Procurement and Legal to embed media governance, financial stewardship, and transparency across IBU markets. 

• Coordinate internal and external audits, ensuring compliance with Lilly’s ethical marketing and reporting practices. 

Basic Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, business, analytics, or a related field. 

• 7+ years of experience in media operations, media planning, or marketing performance management. 

• Qualified applicants must be authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. Lilly will not provide support for or sponsor work authorization and/or visas for this role. 

Preferred Skills & Experience 

• Proven experience managing or supporting global or multi-market media agency partnerships. 

• Working knowledge of ad tech platforms (DSPs, verification tools, ad servers, data clean rooms, etc.). 

• Strong analytical and project-management skills with attention to detail. 

• Demonstrated ability to work across matrixed global organizations and influence without authority. 

• Experience in pharmaceutical, healthcare, or other regulated industries. 

• Familiarity with media auditing processes, compliance standards, and agency evaluation programs. 

• Hands-on experience with media data pipelines, dashboards, and reporting integrations. 

• Deep understanding of paid media workflows (planning, trafficking, tagging, measurement). 

• Strong communication and presentation skills; ability to synthesize complex data into actionable recommendations. 

• High degree of comfort navigating change, ambiguity, and multi-stakeholder environments. 

• Passion for driving operational excellence and building scalable global systems. 

Additional Information 

• Indianapolis (Headquarters) 

• Travel 10-15% based on business requirements.