Associate Director, IBU Consumer Media

Position Overview

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to create medicines that make life better for people around the world. Our employees 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.

Global Customer Office (GCO) brings together 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 data-driven, end-to-end experiences that improve health outcomes across diverse geographies and therapeutic areas.

Associate Director, IBU Consumer Media will strengthen Lilly’s media capabilities across international markets. This role serves as the regional expert for paid media, translating global strategy into practical approaches that reflect local market needs. Working with global media leadership, affiliates, and the global media agency, the Associate Director will ensure accountability for agency performance — including media execution, staffing quality, strategic thought leadership, innovation, and competitive pricing.

The ideal candidate is a collaborative problem-solver with strong media experience, analytical skills, and a passion for improving how Lilly shows up across the world.

• Enterprise Mindset: Balances global enterprise priorities with regional business realities to drive consistency and efficiency.
• Operational Excellence: Brings structure, discipline, and rigor to global media processes within hubs and local markets.
• Accountability & Transparency: Ensures agency performance is measured, reported, and improved continuously.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Builds strong partnerships across media, analytics, consumer marketers and agency partners.
• Innovation & Curiosity: Stays current on emerging media trends, platforms, and best practices to elevate global media maturity.

• Paid Media Strategy & Governance: Act as the regional Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Paid Media, adapting local media strategy and tactical plans aligned to global communications strategy in partnership with global media team and global media agency. Translate global media strategy into regional executional frameworks that reflect market maturity, regulatory nuance, and business priorities.
• Agency Accountability: Strategic oversight of dedicated hubs and affiliates by acting as the conduit between global and local media strategy and consumer activation teams.
• Regional Readiness: Partner with in-market teams to guide audience strategy, channel mix, and investment approaches aligned to brand objectives. Lead local media plan negotiations related to individual market considerations and requirements, including pricing efficiencies.
• Integrated Collaboration & Innovation: Drive operational excellence and thought leadership; identify opportunities for cross-hub/regional knowledge sharing. Partner with Creative, Analytics, and Digital teams to foster connected planning and performance measurement.
• Performance Intelligence & Measurement: Partner with BI&A to set measurement standards; ensure global media agency accountability in providing timely and accurate in-campaign optimizations, in-flight reporting, and post-campaign reporting to enable and improve data-driven decision-making.

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, business, or a related field.
• 7+ years of experience in media and marketing, specifically media agency and/or client side.
• Fluent in English (spoken and written)

• Proven experience managing or supporting global or multi-market media agency partnerships.
• Demonstrated ability to work across matrixed global organizations and influence without authority.
• Experience in pharmaceutical, healthcare, or other regulated industries
• Deep understanding of modern paid media workflows (planning, trafficking, tagging, measurement) and platforms, including programmatic, streaming/CTV, social and retail media
• Experience with data-driven marketing, measurement frameworks, and connecting investment to business outcomes
• Strong relationship management and agency leadership experience
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills; able to work cross-functionally and across cultures
• Experience supporting multiple countries with varying media landscapes and regulations
• 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.

• Position based in Korea or Japan
• Travel ~25% based on business requirements

Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for…