Associate Director, Operational Excellence

At Lilly, the work is demanding because patients are waiting. We unite caring with discovery to help make life better for people around the world, knowing that every decision, every detail, and every day matters. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, our over 50,000 employees around the globe take on complex challenges to discover and deliver life-changing medicines, strengthen how health is understood and managed, and support the communities we serve. This is hard, urgent, selfless work—but it’s work worth doing. If you’re driven by purpose and ready to bring your best to work that truly matters for patients, we invite you to join us. 

The Associate Director, Operational Excellence builds and sustains the information infrastructure, AI-powered tools, and process visualization systems that make value stream performance continuously visible — from the functional team level to senior leadership.

This role is a standing technical capability within BRD's Operational Excellence & Transformation function: it makes the broader continuous improvement culture visible, measurable, and data driven. The person in this role partners closely with scientists, project managers, and business leaders to translate complex cross-functional flows into clear, actionable intelligence, and with subject matter experts to ensure every visualization reflects accurate, validated content. As BRD's priorities evolve, this role adapts its tools and focus areas while sustaining a consistent, reusable process analytics and visualization capability across the division to support productivity and efficiency gains.

This role also directly supports the overall maturity journey of the Operational Excellence system and standards: the person in this role uses visualization and analytics to show functional teams and senior leaders where BRD's OpEx system and standards stand today and what it takes to progress to the next level of maturity.

Value Stream Visualization & Process Mapping

• Partner with CMC and BRD subject matter experts to map end-to-end value stream flows, translating validated scientific and operational content into clear, accurate process visualizations.

• Build and maintain interactive, navigable process hierarchy tools that show where work stands, how long each stage takes, and where handoffs and capacity constraints occur.

• Develop leadership-ready lifecycle and flow visualizations designed for senior audiences, without requiring expert facilitation to interpret.

• Build and deploy innovative solutions to complex problems through AI, enabling prioritization, clarity, and standard work across BRD's value streams from discovery to GMP manufacturing and launch

Intelligent Systems

• Design and deploy real-time dashboards serving two audiences at once: trend-level visibility for senior leaders and process-level drill-down for functional teams.

• Build AI-connected tools that surface value stream KPIs automatically, reducing manual data assembly and duplicative entry across systems, and supporting BRD's daily management and huddle cadence.

• Identify, design, and pilot AI-enabled solutions that reduce friction in how operational data is captured, structured, and made accessible to decision-makers, adapting to new infrastructure gaps as OpEx priorities evolve (e.g., untracked material flows or hand-offs with no current owner).

Capability Building & OpEx Leadership Support

• Serve as a flexible extension of the Senior Director, OpEx & Transformation, providing direct, hands-on support across broader OpEx initiatives and priorities as they arise, beyond this role's core focus areas.

• Provide continuous improvement coaching across BRD functional teams (e.g., through a superuser network or equivalent model) so every project leaves the team more capable, with clear documentation, ownership, and maintenance plans for every system and dashboard.

• Build knowledge management systems and standard work that codify best-in-class science across BRD, making institutional expertise reusable rather than person-dependent.

• Initiate and actively engage with other technical resources across BRD, and maintain broad awareness of best practices across PRD, bringing outside learning back into BRD's OpEx and value stream work.

• Support delivery of regular senior leadership read-out on value stream performance and improvement opportunities, in a format that drives prioritization decisions.

• Maintain a consistent cadence with OpEx leadership and functional stakeholders and conduct on-site observation of work as it actually happens, to ensure visualization systems reflect reality rather than assumptions.

• Support the overall maturity journey of the Operational Excellence system and standards, evolving visualization and reporting tools as BRD's OpEx system matures and standards are updated.

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, data science, information systems, life sciences, or an equivalent technical field.

• Minimum of five years of experience designing process visualizations, business process hierarchies, or end-to-end flow maps in a cross-functional organizational context.

• Experience leading change with or without authority by utilizing and enabling others' use of operational excellence systems, standards, and lean six sigma methodology.

• Experience working directly with subject matter experts to develop technically accurate process content.

• Proficiency with data visualization and dashboard tools, with experience building outputs for non-technical senior leadership audiences.

• Experience with AI-powered tools, automation, or machine learning in an operational or analytical context, particularly to reduce manual data entry or surface real-time performance data.

• Familiarity with business process hierarchy (BPH) design and cross-functional flow structuring across R&D or manufacturing operations. Experience in pharmaceutical, biotech, or regulated life sciences environments preferred.

• Experience building daily management systems, performance dashboards, or tiered review structures in a pharmaceutical R&D or manufacturing context.

• Ability to work with SMEs in the lab or GMP facility and conduct direct observation of work processes.

• Strong communication skills, with the ability to translate complex operational and data concepts for senior leadership audiences.

• Ability to influence diverse stakeholders across scientific, technical, and business functions without direct authority.

• Lean Six Sigma certification (Green Belt or higher) or equivalent Lean practitioner credential, with demonstrated structured problem-solving capability (e.g., root cause analysis, A3, DMAIC).

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 (AMECA), Black Employees at Lilly (BE@Lilly), Chinese Culture Network (CCN), EnAble, Evolve, Lilly Indian Network (LIN), Organization of Latinx at Lilly (OLA), Pride (LGBTQ+ Allies), Veterans Leadership Network (VLN) and Women’s Initiative for Leading at Lilly (WILL).

Actual compensation will depend on a candidate’s education, experience, skills, and geographic location.  The anticipated wage for this position is

Full-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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