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.
Lilly is currently constructing an advanced manufacturing facility for monoclonal antibodies, bioconjugates, and aseptic drug product manufacturing in Goochland County, Virginia. This facility is intended to provide capacity for current and future products. This is a unique opportunity to be a part of the leadership team for the startup of a manufacturing site, and the successful candidate will help to build the organization, the facility and the culture to enable a successful startup into GMP manufacturing operations.
Position Overview
The Senior Director, Facilities, Utilities & Maintenance is responsible for leading site operations related to facilities, utilities infrastructure, and maintenance strategy — ensuring the physical environment, critical systems, and asset reliability programmes are in place to support both site startup and long-term GMP manufacturing operations. This role is part of the Lilly Site Lead Team, contributing to strategic direction, organisational development, and cross-functional coordination across a highly complex biologics and aseptic manufacturing campus.
During the project delivery and startup phase, the Senior Director will guide the development and implementation of GMP-ready systems and business processes, help shape the site's operational culture, and collaborate closely with other Site Lead Team members to manage evolving responsibilities and ensure alignment with corporate objectives. As the site transitions to full-scale GMP manufacturing, the role will evolve to focus on sustaining operational excellence, asset lifecycle management, continuous improvement, and long-term strategic infrastructure goals.
Key Responsibilities
Pre-Startup & Startup Phase
- Leadership & Culture: Be a collaborative, inclusive, and energetic leader, actively supporting the broader Site Lead Team in building a site culture grounded in safety, quality, and operational excellence.
- Organisational Development: Build a facilities, utilities, and maintenance organisation with the capability, capacity, and culture to operate the facility to the highest standards — recruiting and developing the right talent ahead of GMP operations.
- Functional Strategy: Define site facilities and utilities priorities and the maintenance strategy roadmap; develop and implement systems and processes by leveraging internal expertise and external best practices, including predictive and condition-based maintenance frameworks suited to biologics manufacturing.
- Safety Leadership: Serve on the site HSE Lead Team to ensure a strong safety focus is embedded throughout project delivery and startup, including Process Safety Management considerations relevant to the facility's utilities and infrastructure.
- End User Representation: Act as the end user representative for facilities and utilities during project delivery — providing input on design, commissioning, and startup plans to align with both project milestones and long-term operational and maintenance goals.
- Organisational Structure: Develop and adapt the organisational structure to ensure the right resources, technical leadership, and maintenance expertise are in place ahead of full-scale GMP manufacturing.
- System Readiness: Ensure systems are established and executed to achieve and maintain a qualified and safe state for facilities, utilities, and infrastructure — including clean utilities, HVAC, water systems, and critical building management systems relevant to mAb, bioconjugate, and aseptic drug product manufacturing.
- Corporate Alignment: Build strong technical relationships with corporate facilities and engineering functions and champion strategic infrastructure initiatives at the site level.
Post-Startup Phase
- Ongoing Leadership: Continue to lead collaboratively and energetically, supporting the broader Site Lead Team in sustaining a high-performance operational culture.
- Maintenance Excellence: Lead the ongoing execution of a site-wide maintenance strategy integrating preventive, predictive, and condition-based programmes — maximising asset reliability and lifecycle while maintaining full GMP compliance and operational uptime.
- Compliance & Standards: Ensure facilities, utilities, and maintenance activities adhere to corporate policies, cGMP standards, and environmental and safety requirements — maintaining equipment in a qualified and safe state at all times.
- Asset Management: Plan, prioritise, and execute capital projects related to facilities and utilities infrastructure, partnering with site leadership and corporate teams to align investments with site objectives and long-term manufacturing needs.
- External Benchmarking: Maintain an outward focus to identify and apply best practices in facilities management, utilities optimisation, and maintenance strategy from across the biopharmaceutical industry and Lilly's internal network.
- Governance & Controls: Establish and maintain robust governance and control systems for facilities and maintenance activities, ensuring compliance and appropriate escalation of issues.
- Leadership Development: Cultivate future facilities, utilities, and maintenance leaders for the site and potential roles across Lilly's global manufacturing network.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering or a related field
- 10+ years of experience leading teams in the pharmaceutical or biopharmaceutical industry
- 5+ years of experience in API and/or aseptic manufacturing environments, with direct accountability for facilities, utilities, or maintenance functions
Additional Preferences
- Strong knowledge of cGMPs and their application to facilities, utilities, and maintenance operations in a biologics or aseptic manufacturing environment.
- Experience with clean utilities systems relevant to mAb, bioconjugate, and aseptic drug product manufacturing, including WFI, purified water, clean steam, and HVAC systems.
- Demonstrated experience designing and implementing site-wide maintenance strategies, including FMEA-based assessments, predictive maintenance programmes, and lifecycle asset management.
- Experience with Process Safety Management (PSM) programmes, including facilities or utilities with significant hazardous material inventories.
- Proven ability to build effective relationships across all organisational levels, including close collaboration with the Site Leadership Team and corporate functions.
- Demonstrated success in leading end-to-end facilities and capital projects on time, within budget, and to high standards — including greenfield or major brownfield startup environments.
- Skilled in developing high-performing, engaged teams and fostering a strong safety-focused and quality-driven site culture.
- Experience contributing to or leading facility startups, with the ability to influence design and infrastructure decisions that optimise long-term operational performance, maintainability, and GMP compliance.
Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions. If you require accommodation to submit a resume for a position at Lilly, please complete the accommodation request form (https://careers.lilly.com/us/en/workplace-accommodation) for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response.
Lilly is proud to be an EEO Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender identity, sex, gender expression, sexual orientation, genetic information, ancestry, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.
Our employee resource groups (ERGs) offer strong support networks for their members and are open to all employees. Our current groups include: Africa, Middle East, Central Asia Network, Black Employees at Lilly, Chinese Culture Network, Japanese International Leadership Network (JILN), Lilly India Network, Organization of Latinx at Lilly (OLA), PRIDE (LGBTQ+ Allies), Veterans Leadership Network (VLN), Women’s Initiative for Leading at Lilly (WILL), enAble (for people with disabilities). Learn more about all of our groups.
Actual compensation will depend on a candidate’s education, experience, skills, and geographic location. The anticipated wage for this position is
$163,500 - $239,800
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).Lilly reserves the right to amend, modify, or terminate its compensation and benefit programs in its sole discretion and Lilly’s compensation practices and guidelines will apply regarding the details of any promotion or transfer of Lilly employees.
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