Senior Director, Heritage & Archives

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.

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to create medicines that 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.

Job Summary

Lilly is advancing a five-year transformation to modernize Lilly’s Archival Services and strengthen the company’s heritage assets as a strategic enterprise resource.

The Senior Director, Heritage & Archives, will serve as the enterprise leader accountable for defining and advancing Lilly’s heritage and archives strategy, establishing the long-term operating model, governance structure and investment priorities needed to preserve, activate and scale Lilly’s historical assets as a strategic business resource.

The Senior Director, Heritage & Archives, will provide dedicated leadership for the archives, Heritage Hall, the Replica Building, Lab Line Life, heritage tours and related spaces. This role will establish the strategy, governance, operating model and stakeholder alignment needed to protect Lilly’s investment, accelerate access to archival assets and advocate for and activate Lilly’s history in ways that support employee engagement, executive storytelling, research services and key company milestones.

The leader must be able to help translate historical facts, scientific discoveries and the medicine-making process, along with current business priorities, into compelling verbal and visual storytelling and spaces that resonate with employees, leaders, external stakeholders and visitors, including through high-quality heritage tours. The role requires enterprise-level judgment, independent prioritization and the ability to influence stakeholders across Communications, Facilities, Legal, Corporate Affairs, Research, Manufacturing and external partners.

The role leads a team of two employees, a senior historian and a special collections director. The leader will set direction, build team capability and ensure the function delivers measurable outcomes in access, preservation, storytelling, service quality, stakeholder satisfaction and business impact.

The team reports to Global Communications and works closely with Lilly’s Facilities organization, which holds budget and operational accountability for the physical assets.

Basic Requirements

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

• 10+ years of experience leading complex programs or enterprise initiatives

• 5+ years of experience managing budgets, vendors, agencies or cross functional teams

Skills and Capabilities

• Program leadership: Own and drive the remaining transformation roadmap, including overseeing collection processing, prioritization and housing, digitization, new acquisitions, tour and programming enhancements, milestone goals and long-term service evolution.

• Archives and heritage strategy: Set the enterprise strategy for the development, organization, governance and activation of Lilly’s heritage assets in ways that create enduring value for the enterprise.

• Exhibit and experience oversight: Guide planning, maintenance and refresh of physical and digital heritage experiences, including Heritage Hall Phases 2 and 3, the Replica Building and the future iterations of the Lab Line Life experience.

• Governance: Establish and lead a cross-functional Archives advisory board with representation from enterprise stakeholders to set priorities, guide decisions, resolve trade-offs and recommend resource investments.

• Enterprise storytelling: Collaborate with the team to translate historical facts, archival assets, scientific discovery and current business context into compelling verbal and visual storytelling for employee engagement, executive storytelling, research services, tours, milestone programming and broader company communications.

• Heritage tours: Oversee the development of and continuously enhance heritage tours and related visitor experiences for employees, leaders, external stakeholders and special guests, ensuring content is accurate, engaging, audience-appropriate and connected to Lilly’s broader story.

• Scientific and manufacturing fluency: Demonstrate a strong working understanding of science, medicine and the medicine-making process, with the ability to collaborate effectively with Lilly Research Laboratories, Manufacturing, therapeutic areas leaders and subject matter experts to ensure content is accurate, accessible and relevant.

• Cross-functional collaboration: Partner inclusively across business areas, senior leaders, subject matter experts, vendors and enterprise stakeholders to align heritage work with strategic priorities. Navigate competing needs across Communications, Facilities, Legal, Corporate Affairs, Research, Manufacturing and external partners to drive alignment and timely decisions.

• Vendor and budget management: Manage external partners, contracted resources, annual servicing budgets, multi-year capital requests and overall program spend.

• Digital archive and asset management: Oversee the management of digital assets, including the implementation of metadata, access models and content standards. Understanding of and appreciation for preservation practices. Oversee and advocate for the implementation of AI solutions.

• Measurement and reporting: Track and report progress against key measures, including linear feet processed, artifacts cataloged, assets digitized and released, research requests fulfilled, tours, visitors and preservation milestones. Define and monitor broader impact measures, including asset accessibility, service quality, stakeholder satisfaction, executive and enterprise use of archival assets, tour effectiveness, milestone readiness and preservation risk reduction.

• Leadership: Provide strategic counsel, set expectations and ensure work meets quality, legal and regulatory requirements, timing, budget and governance standards; present recommendations and persuade key stakeholders. Lead with authenticity, humility and openness; remove barriers, make timely judgment-based decisions, adjust course as needed and build the connections required to integrate work across stakeholders and deliver results with speed and simplicity. Set direction for the team, develop specialized archival and historical capabilities, make prioritization recommendations and influence senior leaders to deliver enterprise outcomes.

• People leadership and culture: Build, coach and develop a high performing team that draws on varied perspectives by setting clear priorities, empowering decision-making, encouraging new ideas and differing perspectives and creating a safe environment where team members can raise issues, challenge assumptions, learn from change and build resilience.

Preferences

• Experience in content development, corporate heritage, storytelling or communications

• Experience leading enterprise-scale transformation, operating model change or strategic capability building

• Demonstrated