Sr. Director, Therapeutic Research Technology

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.

We are seeking an exceptional strategic leader to orchestrate IT transformation and digital innovation across four pivotal therapeutic areas: Neuroscience, Diabetes & Obesity, Oncology, and Immunology. This high-impact role demands a unique blend of biopharma research expertise, mastery of OMICS technologies, and the strategic foresight to translate sophisticated scientific requirements into scalable, pioneering IT solutions.

As the critical link between Research IT and scientific collaborators, you will partner directly with R&D leadership to architect enterprise-wide technology strategies that accelerate drug discovery. You will be instrumental in ensuring our data infrastructure and digital capabilities evolve ahead of scientific innovation, enabling researchers to unlock breakthrough insights across multiple disease areas.

This role represents a unique opportunity to shape the future of drug discovery through technology innovation. You will work at the intersection of innovative science and ground-breaking IT, directly impacting the development of life-changing therapies. Join us in building the digital foundation that will accelerate breakthrough discoveries across critical therapeutic areas.

What You'll Be Doing:

Strategic Leadership & Vision

• Architect and implement comprehensive IT strategies across four therapeutic areas, ensuring seamless alignment with scientific priorities and business objectives
• Partner with C-suite and therapeutic area leadership to champion ground-breaking digital initiatives that drive competitive advantage
• Build forward-looking technology roadmaps that anticipate and exceed the evolving needs of modern drug discovery

Data & OMICS Strategy Excellence

• Collaborate with scientific partners to define and deliver OMICS data capabilities supporting pre-clinical discovery, including scRNA-seq, spatial transcriptomics, proteomics, CRISPR, and PerturbSeq technologies
• Champion the implementation of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles to improve research efficiency and reproducibility
• Design and communicate product vision for therapeutic area-specific data platforms that accelerate the drug discovery pipeline
• Establish scalable, cloud-native infrastructure supporting advanced OMICS data acquisition, processing, and analysis

Cross-Functional Leadership & Delivery

• Lead high-performing, multidisciplinary teams of bioinformaticians, data scientists, software engineers, and product designers
• Apply Agile methodologies to manage sophisticated product development lifecycles spanning multiple therapeutic areas
• Foster a culture of innovation and collaboration that breaks down silos between scientific and technical teams
• Drive clear, critical communication that synthesizes diverse partner perspectives into unified action

Strategic Partnerships & Innovation

• Cultivate strategic relationships with industry-leading technology partners (DNAnexus, Broad Institute, BioTuring, Illumina) and academic institutions
• Evaluate and integrate emerging technologies and data sources with ground-breaking potential for therapeutic research
• Lead vendor selection and partnership negotiations to enhance value and innovation across the portfolio
• Stay ahead of industry trends to find opportunities for competitive differentiation

Financial & Operational Excellence

• Manage multi-million dollar budgets across direct and indirect IT investments for all four therapeutic areas
• Drive operational excellence through process optimization and continuous improvement initiatives
• Ensure timely delivery of high-impact projects while proactively leading risks and dependencies
• Balance innovation investments with operational stability to