Eli Lilly and Company: No. 35 in the DiversityInc Top 50

Eli Lilly and Company Logo
Company Information

U.S. Headquarters: Indianapolis
Global Employees: 38,349
U.S. Employees: 17,852
Last Year’s DiversityInc Top 50 Ranking:  No. 29
Why It’s on the List

Chairman, President and CEO John Lechleiter continues to be a visible diversity leader.  Lechleiter meets with the company’s resource groups quarterly and regularly uses the company intranet to personally communicate diversity commitment. He also chairs the company’s executive diversity council, which meets every quarter and helps to establish and sign off on diversity goals and metrics.

Lechleiter accepted Eli Lilly’s award as DiversityInc’s Top Company for Working Families last year.

The company’s 10 resource groups are available to all employees, including hourly/shift workers. Groups are used to identify and nurture management talent. The company measures the impact of resource groups on the Lilly brand in the community. Last year, its resource groups participated in more than 15 community events, volunteering more than 10,000 hours.

Eli Lilly spent 3.1 percent of its gross revenue on philanthropy. It supports groups such as the National Urban League, the National Council of La Raza and the Indiana Black Expo, and Lechleiter is on the worldwide board of United Way.

Almost a third of Eli Lilly’s managers participate in its mentoring programs. The programs have cross-cultural components and measurable goals for assessing success.
Diversity Leadership
John Lechleiter
Chairman, President and CEO

“At Eli Lilly and Company, embracing diversity is at the core of our long-held value of respect for people. It is the lens through which we are able to understand and respond to the unique needs of the millions of individuals who depend on our medicines.”
Shaun Hawkins
Chief Diversity Officer

“Our culture embraces difference, values inclusion and has evolved from simply discussing diversity as a social justice issue to diversity being an integral part of our business. Everything else cascades from there. Our patients are diverse. The markets we serve are diverse. The physicians and payers we communicate with are diverse. We want to improve outcomes for individual patients. To do that, we need innovation and to achieve our goals, we need a diverse and inclusive culture.”
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