Associate Director, Project Management

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, selfless 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.  Centessa Pharmaceuticals, a wholly subsidiary of Eli Lilly and Company is advancing a portfolio of high conviction programs with strong biological validation.  Our asset-centric model offers a unique R&D logic that has been applied by single asset companies to improve productivity. This operating model has minimal centralized infrastructure, reduced hierarchy, and exclusive focus on data driven capital allocation.    Our teams are uniquely incentivized to expeditiously interrogate key scientific hypotheses. We believe the asset-centric model can lead to improved success rates for programs with greater speed and modest costs.   Description of Role   Centessa is seeking an Associate Director, Program Management – Orexin Development Programs . This individual will leverage both project management and drug development experience to manage one or more early-stage global Orexin development programs. This position will report to the Executive Director, Global Team Leader .

Partner with the GTL (Global Team Leader) to project manage a cross-functional matrix development team, and select sub-teams   Lead the development of and continuously maintain detailed and fully cross-functionally integrated program Gantt chart, incorporating all relevant dependencies, and provide fit-for-purpose summary views for team use and executive management reviews   Identify and manage interdependencies, critical path and at-risk activities to support program level scenario planning and risk management strategies   Develop and maintain relevant dashboards to communicate status and track progress   Manage cross-functional team meetings including scheduling, preparing agendas, presentation materials, and minutes that ensure proper follow up of action items   Develop and maintain issue logs and risks registers, and ensure team proactively resolve issues in a timely manner and that risks are mitigated as appropriate   Work with cross-functional team and Finance to develop and update budgets, and manage program spend within approved budget   Manage select external vendors (timelines, budgets, MSA/SOW documents, etc.) and integrate deliverables into program Gantt   Support development of Governance and Executive presentations   Provide support for the planning and preparation of documents to a quality standard required for Regulatory/Health Authority submissions   Contribute to establishment and refinement of best practices, processes and procedures   Qualifications   BS plus 8+ years’ experience in pharmaceutical/biotech R&D environment, or MS/MBA plus 6+ years in pharmaceutical/biotech R&D environment, including 4+ years as PM or equivalent   Experience managing project teams through IND-enabling activities, pre-IND mtgs, IND submissions, and Phase 1 development.   Proven expertise in drug development and registration, including early and late-stage clinical, nonclinical, CMC development, and regulatory interactions, submissions/reviews globally   Highly motivated, proactive, detail- oriented and organized self-starter with strong communication , collaboration, interpersonal skills, and influence to accomplish work without formal authority and to ensure optimal team performance   Excellent analytical skills and expert in facilitating team decision