Associate Director, Media & Influence

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, self‑less 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.

The Associate Director, Media & Influence will serve as a key member of the Media & Influence team supporting external communications across the Eli Lilly business. We are looking for a modern media practitioner with an audience‑and data‑first approach who can build credibility for Lilly across both established outlets and emerging platforms.

Reporting to the Senior Director, Media & Influence within Enterprise Communications, the Associate Director, Media & Influence helps shape and steward Lilly's corporate narrative across the full external communications landscape. This role contributes to how Lilly earns attention, builds trust, and grows influence with the audiences that shape our reputation — patients, policymakers, investors, scientific communities, employees, and the public. The information landscape has fundamentally changed;

this role is responsible not only for understanding it, but for helping build Lilly's influence across it. Working across therapeutic areas, functional teams, and geographies, the Associate Director translates complex business achievements, scientific innovations, and corporate initiatives into compelling narratives that resonate across traditional and emerging media platforms and ladder up to our corporate narrative.

• Execute day‑to‑day media relations and influence activity across traditional and emerging platforms, managing pitches, inbound inquiries, and ongoing reporter relationships.
• Contribute to the enterprise media and influence strategy, taking an audience‑and data‑first approach to identify where Lilly's key audiences form trust, how they consume information, and which platforms, voices, and formats will move perception and business outcomes.
• Create modern media strategies for milestones, product launches, and media events, that reflect an audience‑first approach.
• Map and build the modern media ecosystem — traditional journalists, independent creators, community moderators, podcasters, newsletter writers, substack and reddit authors, and influencers — and cultivate a deep, current rolodex of relationships across new verticals and platforms, not just legacy media. Become our in‑house media guru.
• Develop and pitch proactive stories that connect Lilly's pipeline, business performance, and corporate initiatives to patient impact and innovation leadership, supporting senior team members on narrative, targeting, and pitch approach.
• Support planning and execution of product announcements and high‑stakes media events, including drafting media plans and materials, coordinating spokesperson preparation, and managing post‑event follow‑up.
• Help prepare executives and subject matter experts to represent Lilly across media platforms — legacy and emerging — by drafting briefing materials, talking points, and Q&A, and supporting strategic placements including interviews, bylines, podcasts, and speaking opportunities.
• Partner with global communications counterparts across therapeutic areas, business development, investor communications and other external communications functions to ensure upleveled storytelling that resonates with the stakeholders who shape Lilly's reputation.
• Track coverage, sentiment, share of voice, and message pull‑through across the full ecosystem, and use data and audience insights to demonstrate media's impact on perception and business outcomes.

• Bachelor's degree in Communications, Journalism, Public Relations, Marketing, or a related field.
• 6+ years of experience in…