David A. Ricks: Eli Lilly's Chairman and CEO

Under the leadership of David Ricks, Eli Lilly has entered one of the most transformative periods in its long history. But his path to the top wasn't part of a master plan. What began as a short-term role in his home state of Indiana turned into a decades-long journey across the many parts of the global company. Join us as we take a closer look at his career and how he rose to lead the world's largest pharmaceutical company.

• Unexpected career path: David Ricks joined Eli Lilly with a short-term plan expecting to leave after just a few years, but fortunately, he never did.

• Experience across the board: Before becoming CEO in 2017, Ricks spent nearly two decades in a wide range of roles across functions, regions, and business units.

• Leading the GLP-1 race: Under his leadership, Eli Lilly has taken center stage in the market for diabetes and obesity treatments, competing with Novo Nordisk in one of the industry's most closely watched categories.

David A. Ricks was born in 1967 in Bloomington, Indiana, but spent most of his childhood in California after his family relocated. Following high school in the Western state, he returned to Indiana and earned a bachelor's degree in industrial management from Purdue University in 1990.

After graduation, Ricks moved to New York to work as an account representative at IBM, then one of the world's most valuable companies. In 1994, he returned to Indiana when his girlfriend (now his wife) began medical school at Indiana University. Back home, he decided to go back to school to further his education, this time focusing on marketing and finance. He earned his MBA from Indiana University in 1996.

With two years remaining in his partner's medical program, Ricks applied to a local, but globally recognized employer. At the time he was thinking it would be a short-term role and that the couple would relocate from Indiana when she graduated. Instead, it marked the beginning of a career at Eli Lilly that continues to this day.

David Ricks joined Eli Lilly in 1996 as a business development associate, where he worked on mergers and acquisitions. This entry point offered him early exposure to the pharmaceutical company's global scale and complexity.

Over the next two decades, he held a wide range of roles across functions, geographies, and therapeutic areas. In 1998, he was promoted to marketing manager, followed by a role as district sales manager. By 2002, he had been promoted to marketing director for Eli Lilly’s Canadian subsidiary, then advanced to vice president of sales, and in 2005, to general manager of the Canadian business.

In 2008, Ricks relocated to Asia to serve as president and general manager of Eli Lilly China. Just two years later, he was asked to return to the U.S. to take on the role as president of Eli Lilly USA. By that point, with years of experience across markets and functions, he began to see a path toward senior leadership within the company. In 2012, Ricks was appointed president of Lilly Bio-Medicines, then the company's largest business unit. In that role, he oversaw drug development and commercial operations in neuroscience, pain, and immunology.

In January 2017, David Ricks became CEO of Eli Lilly, which was followed by his appointment as Chairman of the Board later that year.

When David Ricks became CEO in 2017, he took the helm of a company with nearly 150 years of history of shaping modern medicine. The responsibility was significant, but after more than two decades in roles spanning functions, regions, and therapeutic areas, he was well prepared to lead.

Early in his tenure, internal studies were already showing promise in what would soon become a defining chapter for Eli Lilly – and for the industry as a whole. However, that project would take a few more years to reach the market. That moment arrived in 2022, when Eli Lilly's Mounjaro (tirzepatide) received FDA approval for type 2 diabetes. With that, the company officially entered the next phase of its evolution: the GLP-1 race.

Under Ricks' leadership, the company has since gone head-to-head with Novo Nordisk, whose semaglutide-based drugs – Ozempic and Wegovy – had an early lead in the category. In 2023, Eli Lilly followed up with its obesity-specific version, Zepbound, and together with Mounjaro, it has completely reshaped the company's growth trajectory. According to Ricks, this is likely just the beginning of a multi-decade trend, with new use cases still to be explored:

Outside his role leading the world's most valuable pharmaceutical company, David Ricks is active in several business and policy circles. He serves on the boards of Adobe and the Business Roundtable, and is a board member and former chair of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

Additionally, Ricks is a member of the CEO Steering Committee for the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations, The Business Council, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Council for Inclusive Innovation. Finally, he is also involved in the executive committee and board of Central Indiana Corporate Partnership.

David Ricks never set out to build a long-term career at Eli Lilly, but nearly three decades later, he remains at the center of its story. From early roles in business development to leading the company as its CEO and Chairman, his tenure has spanned a period of profound change and growth. Now, he guides the giant that is Eli Lilly through what could be one of its most promising eras yet.