Senior Director, Executive Activation & Content

About the role

The Senior Director, Executive Activation & Content is a senior-level communications leader who serves as the primary writing and advisory partner to a defined portfolio of Lilly's most senior executives. This role is central to ensuring the right voice reaches the right audience at the right moment, aligning with Lilly's broader narrative and business objectives.

Responsibilities

• Serves as the primary communications partner and senior writer for a defined portfolio of Executive Committee members, developing and stewarding their authentic voice across all formats and channels.
• Produces high-quality executive content across all formats, including speeches, remarks, thought leadership, LinkedIn posts, video scripts, briefing documents, and talking points.
• Leads development of long-form thought leadership content, event remarks, and appearance preparation for portfolio executives, ensuring each piece is grounded in the executive's voice and connected to Lilly's enterprise narrative.
• Builds and maintains executive briefing documents, media preparation materials, and talking points in advance of high-stakes moments, equipping leaders to communicate with confidence and consistency.
• Collaborates with the AVP on executive positioning strategy and storyline-to-executive mapping, starting with what executives need to achieve on behalf of Lilly, then driving the deployment plan in partnership with Workforce Engagement, SI&O, and others to ensure the right voice reaches the right audience at the right moment.
• Serves as the function's primary point of coordination for agency writing relationships, briefing partners, reviewing output against voice and narrative standards, and ensuring quality and consistency across all externally produced executive content.
• Leverages AI-assisted content workflows to accelerate drafting, news synthesis, briefing preparation, and content adaptation, maintaining quality while increasing output capacity across the team.
• Partners with Strategy, Innovation & Operations on channel strategy, social content distribution, and amplification of executive content, providing content that is ready for distribution across owned channels.
• Tracks and monitors the external landscape for portfolio executives, identifying relevant news, industry developments, and audience moments that develop opportunities for proactive executive communications.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in communications, journalism, English, marketing, or a related field.
• 8+ years of experience in executive communications, corporate communications, or a closely related field, with demonstrated experience supporting C-suite or senior leadership communications.
• Outstanding writing ability across multiple formats, including speeches, remarks, long-form thought leadership, briefing documents, LinkedIn, video scripts, and talking points.
• Strong strategic judgment, ability to advise senior executives on communications approach, audience strategy, and message prioritization in complex, high-stakes environments.
• Experience serving as a senior editorial resource for a communications function, setting and maintaining content quality standards, briefing and leading agency relationships, and ensuring voice fidelity across internally and externally produced content.
• Deep familiarity with the external communications landscape, including earned media, executive social presence, conference and speaking opportunities, and thought leadership platforms.
• Experience developing CoE infrastructure, such as voice guides, playbooks, editorial standards, or shared frameworks, that enable communicators beyond a direct team.
• Ability to synthesize complex scientific, business, or policy content into clear, compelling, and human communications that resonate with diverse external audiences.
• Ability to operate effectively in a small, high-performing team where autonomy, initiative, and cross-functional collaboration are equally important.