Associate Director- Cold Chain Transportation COE

Responsibilities

• Transportation Center of Excellence
• Execute the global transportation strategy across all temperature-controlled lanes and modes
• Maintain GDP/GMP-compliant standards for cold chain shipments across markets
• Maintain and execute business continuity plans for transportation disruptions
• Drive IoT monitoring use and own the operational response to temperature excursions
• Oversee multi-modal transportation operations (air, ocean, ground, parcel)
• Provide operational oversight of carriers, freight forwarders, and 3PLs against SLAs and KPIs
• Support import/export operations including customs clearance, documentation andnINCOTERMS application,
• Optimize lanes and networks for cost, service, sustainability, and compliance
• Collaborates with TMS adoption, real-time visibility tooling, and analytics rollouts
• Partner with Import/Export Compliance teams to ensure trade, customs, and hazmat compliance across jurisdictions
• Support thermal packaging selection, qualification, and lane-specific validations
• Operational Execution
• Serve as the COE's operational point of accountability for transportation business processes
• Triage and resolve in-flight transportation issues, escalations, and exceptions
• Run operational governance cadences (carrier reviews, lane performance, excursion reviews)
• Drive root-cause analysis and corrective/preventive actions on recurring operational issues
• Project Management for Key Initiatives
• Lead end-to-end project management for COE initiatives (scoping, planning, stakeholder alignment, execution, closeout)
• Manage cross-functional workstreams across Manufacturing, Quality, Procurement, Trade Compliance, IT, and Commercial
• Maintain integrated project plans, risk/issue logs, and executive-ready status reporting
• Apply structured PM methodology (stage-gate, Agile, or hybrid) appropriate to each initiative
• Transportation Quality & Regulatory Compliance
• Apply GDP knowledge to support compliance with Transportation Quality and regulatory processes
• Partner with Quality on deviations, CAPAs, change controls, and audit readiness for transportation activities
• Ensure sound risk analysis and documentation for our transportation processes
• Support inspections and audits (internal, regulatory, customer) related to transportation and cold chain
• Leadership & Cross-Functional Responsibilities
• Operational Excellence
• Support KPI definition and governance across the COE's global transportation and cold chain operations
• Drive continuous improvement using Lean / Six Sigma methods
• Support the Global Transportation transformation initiative, including the Regional Transportation Hubs rollout
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Partner daily with Manufacturing, Quality, Procurement, Trade Compliance, and Commercial teams
• Maintain working relationships with logistics service providers and cold chain solution providers
• Represent the COE in cross-functional forums and operational reviews
• Change Management
• Champion adoption of new transportation processes, systems, and digital tools
• Build cross-functional alignment on operational changes driven by COE initiatives
• Coach and develop more junior team members and matrixed contributors on transportation operations and project delivery
• Basic Requirements
• Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Logistics, Engineering, Science or related field
• 5+ years in global transportation or logistics operations with direct accountability for carrier manage

Benefits

Additional Information

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. Position Summary The Associate Director actively drives the Global Transportation and Cold Chain strategic and operational agenda. The role combines driving strategic and operational initiatives as well as hands-on operational execution for transportation activities with project management leadership for key COE initiatives that advance Lilly's global logistics network. This role will actively support the transportation transformation initiative enabled by the implementation of Regional Transportation Hubs. This is a working leadership role for a candidate who can move fluidly between operational problem-solving (carrier issues, excursion management, customs holds, lane performance) and structured project delivery (productivity initiatives, cold chain qualifications, compliance programs). The ideal candidate brings deep cold chain and transportation expertise, working knowledge of GDP, and the discipline to support Transportation Quality and regulatory processes across multiple geographies.

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