Senior Director, QMS Core Quality Governance

Lilly • Indianapolis, IN

15d • $156,000 - $253,000

About The Position

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.
About Lilly
At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. As a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, our employees work to discover and deliver life-changing medicines, advance the understanding and management of disease, and strengthen our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We put people first and bring our best to everything we do.
Role Overview
The Senior Director, QMS Core Quality Governance is a critical leadership role within Global Quality Systems (GQS). This leader will oversee a team of 6–10 direct reports, including Global Process Owners and key process leads responsible for Core Quality processes.
This role ensures health, capability, and continuous evolution of the Core Quality processes that underpin the QMS Framework. It also drives expansion into governance and ongoing improvement of Quality-owned processes beyond the core set—strengthening the Quality Governance pillar across the enterprise.
The Senior Director is accountable for:
Sustaining process health and capability
Embedding strong governance and standardized reporting
Ensuring processes remain compliant, scalable, and aligned with corporate and regulatory expectations
This role is central to defining and shaping the future state of the QMS' Quality Governance pillar.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry within quality, operations, R&D, or manufacturing.
• Demonstrated leadership of a team of Quality professionals, with a track record of building capability and driving high performance.
• Proven ability to design and deliver Quality strategies balancing standardized and phase-appropriate approaches.
• Bachelor’s degree in Natural Science, Engineering, Pharmacy, or related field.

Nice To Haves

• Experience leading global or multi-site transformation or improvement initiatives.
• Strong strategic thinker with the ability to execute and balance competing priorities.
• Skilled at analyzing complex data to drive decisions and improvements.
• Demonstrated ability to lead through ambiguity and change.
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills; able to influence across all levels and in matrixed environments.
• Proven success developing scalable, globally relevant processes.
• Strong leadership instincts to make informed decisions balancing speed, quality, and risk.
• Experience establishing governance frameworks and proactively managing regulatory and quality risks.
• Deep understanding of global regulatory requirements and QMS frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a team of 6–10 GPOs and process leaders, building deep capability and ensuring strong ownership of Core Quality processes.
• Mentor and grow the GPO community to enhance process expertise, collaboration, and execution excellence.
• Provide direct oversight of Core Quality processes and partner with owners of extended Quality-owned and non-Quality-owned processes across the QMS.
• Ensure processes are healthy, scalable, and consistently executed across the enterprise.
• Partner with Management Review to design a sustainable model for measuring and monitoring the health of the QMS process ecosystem.
• Implement governance structures that drive effective prioritization, timely decision-making, and ease of execution across the QMS.
• Collaborate with manufacturing, external suppliers, affiliate quality, R&D, and cross-functional partners to align and integrate enterprise-level processes.
• Ensure Global Standards, processes, training, and tools remain aligned with regulatory requirements, industry expectations, and Lilly policies.
• Partner with document owners to evaluate risks associated with document or process changes and develop mitigation strategies.
• Define global effectiveness and efficiency measures to assess end-to-end QMS performance and build enterprise capability.
• Monitor and report process performance, extracting insights that inform decision-making and continuous improvement.
• Drive simplification, consistency, and capability across the QMS through standardization and adoption of best practices.

Benefits

• 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).

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director