At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our employees around the world work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first. We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.
Organization 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.
As part of this enterprise transformation, the Sr. Director of IBU Consumer Media will lead Disease State Education (DSE) paid media strategy, governance, and communication planning across Lilly’s International Business Units (IBUs), with a focus on disease state campaigns and key affiliates and major hubs. This leader will serve as the central connection point between global strategy and local activation—ensuring alignment to enterprise priorities, optimization of investments, and consistent operational excellence across markets.
The Sr. Director will report to the Associate Vice President, Global Media & Partnerships, partnering closely with IBU brand, analytics, and affiliate leadership, as well as Publicis and local agency teams. While this role does not directly measure ROI, it will be accountable for establishing the frameworks, operating models, and best practices that enable affiliates to drive efficient investment and quality execution within their respective markets.
This position requires a global leader who brings both strategic vision and operational rigor, with the ability to influence across geographies, cultures, and functions to elevate Lilly’s media maturity internationally.
This is a pivotal role designed for a globally minded media leader who combines in-market experience outside the U.S. with a deep understanding of U.S. standards, priorities, and performance expectations. The Senior Director will serve as the key bridge between Lilly’s Global Media team and IBU markets—translating global direction into locally relevant action.
This leader will not have extensive direct reports but will operate through influence, guiding a large network of cross-functional and in-market stakeholders, agencies, and regional leaders toward a unified vision for media excellence.
Key Behaviors
Enterprise Mindset: Balances global enterprise priorities with regional business realities to drive consistency and efficiency. Has a deep appreciation for market-level nuance, adapting approaches to diverse cultural and regulatory environments.
Influence Through Partnership:. Acts as a connector and unifier aligning stakeholders across geos & functions, surfacing shared goals, and ensuring transparent communication across functions.
Operational Excellence: Establishes frameworks, standards, and tools that simplify complexity and scale impact.
Curiosity & Adaptability: Anticipates evolving market, media, and cultural dynamics, adapting approaches to local context.
Empowerment: Strengthens affiliate capabilities through guidance, mentorship, and collaboration.
Core Responsibilities
Global Paid Media Strategy & Governance: Define the overarching paid media framework for disease state and priority brand campaigns across key affiliates and major hubs. Ensure strategies align with enterprise objectives while enabling local executional flexibility.
Communication Planning Framework: Lead the development of a global communication planning approach focused on delivering the right message, at the right time, in the right environment. Establish principles that guide affiliates on audience segmentation, message sequencing, and channel selection to ensure consistent and contextually relevant storytelling across markets.
Affiliate Partnership & Enablement: Support affiliates in translating enterprise frameworks into local activation plans. Provide consultative guidance on planning, investment allocation, and campaign performance standards. Interaction with affiliate CMOs and GMs.
Agency & Partner Leadership: Oversee agency operations across international markets, ensuring consistent quality, accountability, and collaboration. Serve as the escalation point for complex operational or strategic challenges.
Operational Change Management (OCM): Lead OCM efforts to embed new global ways of working, ensuring affiliates understand the “why” behind changes and feel supported in the transition to new models, tools, and governance.
Measurement & Learning Frameworks: Establish the standards, KPIs, and reporting processes for campaign evaluation and performance tracking. While direct ROI measurement is not feasible, ensure consistent directional learning and transparency of investment outcomes.
Industry & Market Intelligence: Track trends across markets to inform global strategy and identify scalable innovation opportunities that improve media effectiveness and affiliate enablement.
Governance, Compliance & Brand Safety: Ensure all paid media activities uphold Lilly’s standards for compliance, privacy, and reputational safety. Provide oversight and guidance to affiliates to maintain integrity across campaigns.
Influence & Stakeholder Engagement: Serve as a trusted advisor to senior marketing, digital, and procurement stakeholders across markets. Build alignment across Global, Regional, and Local teams to ensure cohesive adoption of media governance, agency models, and investment principles.
Basic Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, business, or a related field.
10+ years of experience in media strategy, planning, and/or operations within global or multi-market organizations.
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.
Additional Skills & Experience
Deep understanding of international markets (Europe, Japan, China, LATAM, etc.) and their unique media landscapes.
Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional and cross-market teams.
Proven ability to influence and build alignment within a matrixed organization.
Strong understanding of paid media channels, investment planning, and agency management.
Experience in pharmaceutical, healthcare, or other regulated industries.
Expertise in communication planning, including audience segmentation, message sequencing, and contextual media strategy (right message, right time, right environment).
Experience overseeing agency ecosystems and performance governance across global markets.
Background in change management (OCM) and scaling operational frameworks across geographies.
Knowledge of media measurement frameworks and ability to guide markets on directional insights without ROI quantification.
Strategic mindset with hands-on operational fluency to translate global strategy into local activation.
Exceptional communication skills with the ability to simplify complex strategies for diverse audiences.
Track record of developing talent and building high-performing, collaborative teams.
Comfort working in ambiguity, with strong judgment and adaptability.
Other
LOCATION: Indianapolis, HQ
Travel 20% based on business requirements.
Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions. If you require accommodation to submit a resume for a position at Lilly, please complete the accommodation request form (https://careers.lilly.com/us/en/workplace-accommodation) for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response.
Lilly is proud to be an EEO Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender identity, sex, gender expression, sexual orientation, genetic information, ancestry, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.
Our employee resource groups (ERGs) offer strong support networks for their members and are open to all employees. Our current groups include: Africa, Middle East, Central Asia Network, Black Employees at Lilly, Chinese Culture Network, Japanese International Leadership Network (JILN), Lilly India Network, Organization of Latinx at Lilly (OLA), PRIDE (LGBTQ+ Allies), Veterans Leadership Network (VLN), Women’s Initiative for Leading at Lilly (WILL), enAble (for people with disabilities). Learn more about all of our groups.
Actual compensation will depend on a candidate’s education, experience, skills, and geographic location. The anticipated wage for this position is
$154,500 - $226,600Full-time equivalent employees also will be eligible for a company bonus (depending, in part, on company and individual performance). In addition, Lilly offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees, including eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k); pension; vacation benefits; eligibility for medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits; flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts); life insurance and death benefits; certain time off and leave of absence benefits; and well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities).Lilly reserves the right to amend, modify, or terminate its compensation and benefit programs in its sole discretion and Lilly’s compensation practices and guidelines will apply regarding the details of any promotion or transfer of Lilly employees.
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