Karl Mayer

karl.mayer@lilly.com
Indianapolis, IN, USA

Strategic technology leader with 20+ years of experience in enterprise data architecture, scientific informatics, and cross-functional platform leadership in pharma and biotech. Deep background designing scalable data infrastructure, enabling AI/ML-ready systems, and translating complex scientific needs into foundational data and software platforms.

Proven track record building enterprise data ecosystems, leading multidisciplinary architecture teams in matrixed global organizations, and championing data quality, governance, and FAIR principles. Deep domain expertise across the scientific data types that underpin molecule discovery: compound registration, assay and screening data, in vivo and in vitro results, LIMS, ELN, and genomics/proteomics. Experienced partnering across research, informatics, cybersecurity, and executive stakeholders to align technology strategy with scientific mission.

Guiding philosophies: ◇ Architecture externalizes assumptions.   ◇ Script the critical moves.   ◇ Simplicity is an applied force.

Skills

Experience
Scientific Informatics, Enterprise Platform Strategy, AI/ML & Agentic Workflows, Ontology & Schema Design, Data Architecture & Governance, Cloud IaaS/PaaS (AWS, Azure), DevSecOps, Enterprise Architecture, Cross-Functional Leadership, Program Management, Executive Reporting & KPIs, Risk Assessment Frameworks, Lean-Agile Transformation
Toolbox
AWS, Azure, GitHub, Jira, Knowledge Graphs, Kubernetes, LLMs / MCP, ServiceNow, Tableau
Languages
C#, C++, Golang, Java, JavaScript, Python, R, TypeScript

Experience

Sr. Director & Lead Architect

Eli Lilly, Digital Core Jan 2022 - Present

Architecture lead for Lilly's Digital Core, spanning Engineering, Enterprise Data, Cloud, Service Management, Digital Employee Experience, and Mobility, driving platform strategy, AI-native tooling, and technology governance in close partnership with Enterprise Data architects and product owners.

  • Leading architecture and engineering for three AI products on Lilly's Cortex AI Platform: ChatNow (600+ users, delivered 2-3 months early), Finance Agentic Transformation (alpha delivered within first month), and Fuse, a Digital Core Marketplace for technology products and services. Driving agentic workflow design, API integration patterns, and platform capability exploitation across all three.
  • Chair the Digital Core Architecture x Innovation Council, driving architectural excellence, resolving organizational cross-cutting concerns, and accelerating innovation pull-through across Digital Core capabilities.
  • Own TechHQ, a technology knowledge platform where architects across Tech@Lilly contribute technology positioning, guidance, and next steps to equip architects and technical leaders with authoritative ecosystem knowledge. Now serving as a primary knowledge source for grounding AI with accurate context about Lilly's technology landscape.
  • Led DevX Program with 2,500+ participants, delivering developer experience savings through AI pair programmers, knowledge reuse, and streamlined onboarding across 80+ engineers in 15+ repositories.
  • Serve as Business Relationship Manager to Digital Office / Global Services, representing Digital Core strategic priorities across HR, Finance, and Legal functions, directly informing AI transformation initiatives including Finance Agentic Transformation.

Director of Technology & Platforms

Eli Lilly, Research Information & Digital Solutions Mar 2020 - 2021

Managed a globally distributed team of 20 engineers and informaticians responsible for engineering and operations of biology, chemistry, and analytical chemistry research systems, with architectural risk oversight of the Benchling and Biologica large molecule implementation, and active participation on the electronic Lab Notebook (eLN) Steering Team.

  • Owned PerkinElmer Signals, Genedata Screener, and Agilent OpenLAB platforms, including vendor management with Agilent; contributed to early PerkinElmer Signals deployment strategy and drove architecture standards for HTS and analytical chemistry data capture and integration across chemistry research workflows.
  • Led architecture and delivery of Thalamus, a Kafka-based platform to ingest and aggregate analytical lab data in real time, capturing raw instrument data with full scientific context — modernizing legacy home-grown systems, reducing dependency on costly LIMS platforms, and establishing a scalable foundation for scientific computing.
  • Sponsored CATS, the GitOps Kubernetes platform, saving 9,000+ developer hours in year one, and AWS onboarding and Kafka data aggregation platforms to modernize data infrastructure across biology, chemistry, and analytical research workflows.
  • Contributed to Research.Data, Lilly's enterprise research data ecosystem, bringing deep domain expertise across compound registration, assay and screening data, in vivo and in vitro results, large and small molecule data, ELN data, and genomics/proteomics — ensuring comprehensive domain coverage and unified scientific data access across research organizations.

Security Advisor

Eli Lilly, Research Information & Digital Solutions Jan 2018 - Mar 2020

Served as embedded architect and security lead for LRL, reporting to the Sr. VP of Lilly Research Labs. Brought deep security-by-design expertise and architectural leadership to the Research information security portfolio, leading AWS Well-Architected reviews, risk assessments, threat modeling, and risk management frameworks. Developed executive dashboards and KPIs for VP and AVP audiences integrating ServiceNow, Archer IRM, and cloud sources.

  • Architected integrated analytics and reporting frameworks combining ServiceNow, Archer IRM, and cloud data sources into unified Tableau dashboards, delivering actionable insights to VP and AVP stakeholders across security and compliance domains.
  • Led Collaboration Informatics solution to provision cloud data science environments; engaged infrastructure teams to accelerate High-Performance Computing in AWS, Clinical Data for Research, and a Kubernetes-based data science platform.
  • Collaborated with Advanced Analytics & Data Science (AADS) on integration patterns and data infrastructure strategy for the Enterprise Data Backbone, and co-chaired the AADS Visual Analytics Community of Practice with 60–80 monthly participants.
  • Led enterprise-wide technology assessment of 35+ security-critical systems, developing recommendations that eliminated 82 B2B VPNs and transitioned 7 business-supported systems to IT.

Clinical Results Architect

Eli Lilly, Medicines Development Information & Digital Solutions Jan 2013 - 2018

Domain architect for Clinical Data Flow, Biometrics, and Product & Project Management systems. Led foundational data architecture, data pipeline strategy, and clinical risk measurement frameworks.

  • Founding member of Medicine Development's Architecture Office; owned clinical business architecture strategy, data models, and accompanying artifacts spanning chemical, biological, and clinical data domains.
  • Led architecture for Clinical Data Flow, an 8-month multi-million-dollar cloud platform RFP with a 3-year data pipeline roadmap spanning 10 source systems; co-architected the MD-IDS InfoHub, unifying data access across medicine development informatics and clinical systems.
  • Designed CLUWE, a statistical computing environment for clinical data that replaced multiple SAS systems and manual business processes, serving statisticians and clinical data managers. Led a 20+ person team through scoping, prioritization, and delivery; the platform remains in production to this day.
  • Directed LogicView, a centralized solution for clinical patient safety and data quality monitoring, delivering $10M in first-year savings. Grew team to 12, managed budget, and oversaw development for 13 studies and 60+ analytics. Influenced industry standards for measuring clinical trial risk.
  • Contributing author on the TransCelerate BioPharma Risk-Based Monitoring Technology White Paper, helping define industry standards for clinical risk assessment and monitoring.

Solution Delivery Consultant

Eli Lilly, Lilly Research Labs Jan 2011 - 2014

Technical lead and systems engineer for Discovery IT systems, including RRL (Research Results Loader), CSI (Crowd-Sourced Intelligence), and the LRL Data Hub research data ecosystem.

  • Led RRL, a web-based self-service data ingestion platform supporting verification and loading of tens of thousands of datasets across dozens of external research collaborations — a production-grade system in continuous use for over a decade.
  • Directed a team of 8 engineers designing CSI, a competitive intelligence data mining solution leveraging semantic web linked data.
  • Rehosted and refactored a portfolio of a dozen translational research systems from Singapore to the US in 3 months, encompassing two data center migrations, multiple databases, and .NET, Java, and R codebases.
  • Co-architected the LRL Data Hub with ResultWorks, developing formal entity-relationship models, ontologies, and logical architecture across core research data domains including compound registration, assay and screening data, in vivo and in vitro results, and genomics/proteomics — a foundational effort that served as the conceptual precursor to the MD-IDS InfoHub and Research.Data ecosystems.

Sr. Systems Engineer

Eli Lilly, Lilly Research Labs Jan 2006 - 2011

Technical lead and systems engineer for Discovery IT systems with a focus on scientific data integration, linked data and ontology strategies, and bespoke research informatics solutions.

  • 2-year product lead for DTAT, a discovery research platform used by 500 LRL scientists, developed by 15+ engineers across the US, Europe, and Singapore. Surfaced genomics, proteomics, competitive intelligence, and Research wikis across 22 modules. Automated months of manual curation with a competitor drug landscape module.
  • Designed the In Vitro Results Sweeper, a custom ETL engine with an XML DSL that replaced 3 ETL systems and supported 15 external scientific collaborations through schema-driven, reusable data integration.
  • Spearheaded adoption of Semantic Web technology for linked data, including graph databases, OWL ontologies, and SPARQL — foundational experience in controlled vocabularies and interoperable data models that continues to inform current work in knowledge graphs and AI-native data infrastructure.
  • Three-year contributor to Microsoft's ASP.NET Web API and Open Data advisory groups, shaping interoperable API standards.

Systems Analyst

Eli Lilly, Global Business Integration Project Jan 2002 - 2006

Training administration solutions technical lead

  • Introduced automated testing of the GMP-validated training system to increase change velocity and decrease defects.
  • Doubled the efficiency of training data EDI with SAP and designed GBIP's first SOAP web service to integrate a MES (Manufacturing Execution System) in Sesto, Italy.
  • Redesigned database schema and migrated 40M records, reducing report query times from hours to seconds.

Systems Administrator, concurrent with university studies

Ready Machine Corporation Jan 2000 - Jan 2002

Sole IT professional for a 40-employee tool & die business. Procured software and hardware, installed Ethernet network, and designed a custom inventory system integrated with a commercial ERP solution.

Publications

Risk-Based Monitoring Methodology TransCelerate BioPharma Inc. Oct 2014

Contributing author on technological enablement of clinical risk-based monitoring — establishing industry standards for data-driven clinical risk assessment

Life Science Grid SourceForge Apr 2008

Sponsored Eli Lilly's first open-source software product, a .NET framework for developing scientific applications

Awards

CIDO (Chief Information & Digital Officer) Award Finalist Eli Lilly

Recognized for technology leadership excellence in: 6-Month AI Plan, Innovation Council, CATS (GitOps-Kubernetes Platform), Clinical Data For Research, Collaboration Informatics, Clinical Data Flow, Clinical Risk-based Monitoring, Competitive Intelligence Data Mining, Discovery Target Assessment

Volunteering

FIRST & 4-H Robotics

Team Coach Feb 2022 - Present

Teach and mentor STEM innovation, robotics design, programming, and AI/ML to 4–9th grade students

Mentor Collective, Indiana University Women & Technology

Collegiate Mentor Jul 2022 - Jul 2023

Mentor for collegiate and early career technology majors

Education

Indiana University

Aug 1998 - May 2002
Bachelor of Science, Honors - Computer Science

Indiana University

Aug 1999 - May 2001
Minor - Kelley School of Business

certificates

This resume is a dataset: structured, FAIR-adjacent, LLM-ingestible. YAML source available.
Creative Commons licensed, because good architecture should be shared.