Consultant Sales Force CRM System Custodian

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. 

About Lilly

About Lilly Research Labs, Bengaluru

Purpose of the Job

The External Innovation function which is comprised of the C360, Search and Evaluate and Corporate Business Development teams collectively manage Lilly's ecosystem of partnerships, investments, and acquisitions that accelerate our access to innovative therapies and technologies. The newly established Salesforce CRM platform serves as the source of truth for historical and current partnering conversations and thereby enables line of site across Search & Evaluate, Corporate Business Development, and venture teams.

The System Custodian will work with the System Owner as well as strategic stakeholders to enable the practical functionality and utility of the system to meet the primary needs of the system users. The system owner and custodian will have the primary accountability for platform governance, cross-team coordination, and alignment with broader External Innovation program objectives. Operating at the intersection of business needs and technical operations, the System Custodian ensures that platform capabilities evolve to serve the changing priorities of External Innovation stakeholders while maintaining system health, data integrity, and operational continuity.

The System Custodian works closely with the System Owner (Salesforce SME and technical authority) to translate business requirements into platform direction, drive strategic platform roadmap prioritization, maintain operational oversite and governance as well as coordinate across S&E, CBD, C360 and venture teams to maximize platform value.

Responsibilities

• Platform Governance & Roadmap Authority: Define and maintain governance frameworks, decision-making protocols, and prioritization criteria for platform enhancements, configuration changes, and technical debt; partner with the System Owner to evaluate and approve releases and major system changes in alignment with External Innovation strategy.
• Cross-Functional Stakeholder Coordination: Coordinate platform priorities and release schedules across Catalyze360, Search & Evaluate, and Corporate Business Development teams; resolve competing stakeholder needs and ensure platform direction reflects the broader External Innovation portfolio.
• Stakeholder Engagement & Communication: Maintain structured engagement with External Innovation teams and subject matter experts to surface evolving business needs, communicate platform capabilities and constraints, and translate feedback into actionable platform guidance.
• Platform Operations & Data Integrity: Collaborate with Salesforce administration to define and prioritize configuration changes, reporting enhancements, and system optimizations; establish and enforce data quality standards, metadata governance, and information architecture protocols to ensure reliability for downstream analysis and decision-making.
• Platform Health, Adoption & Continuous Improvement: Monitor adoption trends, platform health metrics, and user satisfaction; identify and escalate risks to uptime, data quality, or regulatory compliance; track bus