{"id":2827,"date":"2025-12-01T18:22:56","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T18:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/allesleypharmacy.co.uk\/pharmacy\/?p=2827"},"modified":"2025-12-01T18:22:56","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T18:22:56","slug":"why-eli-lillys-success-might-be-tied-to-its-ceos-high-employee-approval","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allesleypharmacy.co.uk\/pharmacy\/why-eli-lillys-success-might-be-tied-to-its-ceos-high-employee-approval\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Eli Lilly’s Success Might Be Tied to Its CEO’s High Employee Approval"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is it just luck that the most valuable pharmaceutical company, Eli Lilly, also has a CEO who is highly rated by his employees? Maybe not. Eli Lilly, which recently became the first pharmaceutical company worth a trillion dollars, also has another notable achievement: CEO David Ricks is ranked number one among big pharma CEOs in terms of employee approval, according to reviews on Glassdoor. Studies show that employee approval of a CEO is linked to company performance, with top leaders boosting worker efficiency, improving recruitment, and lifting customer perception. This seems to be true for Lilly, where 89% of roughly 6,100 reviewers on Glassdoor approve of the job Ricks is doing. Lilly\u2019s financial performance matches this high approval rating, thanks to blockbuster drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro, which together brought in more than $10 billion in the third quarter, topping the company\u2019s sales charts. Lilly also raised its full-year forecasts and has a deep pipeline of closely watched research projects. With Ricks at the helm, how do other top pharma CEOs measure up? PharmaVoice searched the top 20 pharma companies by 2024 revenue on Glassdoor and sorted by the percentage of employees who approved of the current CEO. U.S.-based Merck & Co. and Germany\u2019s Merck KGaA were not included due to insufficient or unreliable Glassdoor data. Among the bottom-ranked CEOs, just over half of employees approved of the job they were doing, including Pfizer\u2019s Albert Bourla at 52%, CSL\u2019s Paul McKenzie at 53%, and Bayer\u2019s Bill Anderson at 58%. Bristol Myers Squibb\u2019s Chris Boerner and Takeda Pharmaceutical\u2019s Christophe Weber fared a little better, with 65% and 73% approval, respectively. The top-ranked CEOs, on the other hand, scored much higher, each with no fewer than 87% of employees approving of their performance. Here\u2019s a look at the top CEOs by approval rating. CEO: David Ricks Employee approval: 89% Recently named CEO of the year by Chief Executive magazine, David Ricks led Lilly to a string of wins this year, topped off with the tirzepatide franchise becoming the world\u2019s best-selling drug and overtaking Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic<\/a> in the GLP-1 revenue race. Ricks, who also made it onto this year\u2019s Time100 Health list, joined Novo\u2019s CEO earlier this month to strike a deal with the White House to lower<\/a> U.S. prices for GLP-1 drugs. It\u2019s part of a larger price-cutting and access strategy, which also includes a recent deal with Walmart to expand to direct-to-consumer pricing for Zepbound through LillyDirect, offering the drug for pick-up at the retail giant\u2019s pharmacies. Looking to the future, Ricks says he\u2019s all-in on artificial intelligence. \u201cAt least one or two AIs,\u201d are running during every meeting, according to the CEO. That enthusiasm is reflected across the whole of the company, with Lilly announcing plans to work with chip-maker Nvidia to build the \u201cmost powerful supercomputer owned and operated by a pharmaceutical company\u201d that could power an ‘AI factory.’ CEO: Thomas Schinecker Employee approval: 87% Thomas Schinecker started the year by taking over as president of the global pharma trade body, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations. He\u2019s also remained an impactful leader at Roche, inking bigger-ticket deals like the $3.5 billion acquisition of 89bio and subsidiary Genentech\u2019s $2.1 billion pact with Orionis Biosciences to discover small-molecule glue medicines for cancer<\/a>. Schinecker plans to keep up that business development clip, saying \u201cwe\u2019re not done\u201d during a third-quarter earnings call last month. Schinecker is rolling the dice elsewhere, too. Roche is betting big on its obesity pipeline, aiming to compete with Lilly and Novo, despite scrapping one of the early-stage assets from its $2.7 billion acquisition of Carmot Therapeutics. The company is also in talks with the U.S. government to lower drug costs, with Schinecker floating the possibility of selling prescriptions directly to consumers. CEO: Hubertus von Baumbach Employee approval: 87% When Hubertus von Baumbach took the reins of Boehringer Ingelheim in 2015, he became the first CEO from the company\u2019s founding family in 25 years. Von Baumbach, a great-grandson of Boehringer Ingelheim\u2019s founder, stepped into the role after serving as finance chief. In the decade since, von Baumbach has led the company in deals ranging from a multibillion-dollar business swap with Sanofi to an agreement with Google Quantum AI for R&D. Boehringer also scored two FDA<\/a> approvals in the second half of 2025. Its Jascayd approval marked the first new idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis treatment in more than a decade, and the company entered the oncology<\/a> market with the kinase inhibitor Hernexeos. In addition to the CEO role, von Baumbach was recently appointed as chairman of the company\u2019s shareholders\u2019 committee. CEO: Vas Narasimhan Employee approval: 87% Another Time100 Health honoree, Vas Narasimhan recently boasted of the company\u2019s \u201cfirepower\u201d to ink big deals like a $12 billion acquisition of Avidity Biosciences announced in October, thanks to Novartis\u2019 free cash flow approaching $20 billion a year. He also said Novartis won\u2019t step away from the M&A table in the quest for the next \u201cgreat asset.\u201d Avidity marked Novartis\u2019 largest deal since Narasimhan took the helm as CEO in 2018. Still, the company faced criticism for the acquisition, with investors raising questions about the effectiveness of the biotech\u2019s antibody-oligonucleotide conjugates. Novartis also faces pressure to strike deals with the White House to lower drug prices, similar to those brokered by Pfizer, Lilly, AstraZeneca, and Novo. However, while Narasimhan acknowledged the drugmaker is engaged in ongoing talks with the Trump administration, he said such deals don\u2019t get to the root of the problem. \u201cI think the pharma industry\u2019s view is that the proposed negotiations or proposed actions are not going to address the underlying issues here,\u201d he said during a recent earnings call. CEO: Pascal Soriot Employee approval: 87% After Pascal Soriot struck a deal with the White House to lower drug prices and avoid tariffs, Reuters called the AstraZeneca CEO \u201csomething of a Trump whisperer\u201d who went on a charm offensive to reach the agreement, including meeting at a royal banquet in the U.K., where the company is based. Just a week after Trump won the 2024 election, AstraZeneca said it would invest $3.5 billion in R&D and manufacturing in the U.S. Then in July, the company said it would pour an additional $50 billion into the U.S. by 2030. \u201cToday\u2019s announcement underpins our belief in America\u2019s innovation in biopharmaceuticals and our commitment to the millions of patients who need our medicines in America and globally,\u201d Soriot said in a statement. Soriot\u2019s dealings with the U.S. are in stark contrast to how it\u2019s approaching affairs in its home country, saying that if the U.K.\u2019s NHS doesn\u2019t spend more on new drugs, and \u201cif things continue to deteriorate the way they do,\u201d the nation could someday only be able to afford cheap generics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is it just luck that the most valuable pharmaceutical company, Eli Lilly, also has a CEO who is highly rated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pharmaceutical-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allesleypharmacy.co.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allesleypharmacy.co.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allesleypharmacy.co.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allesleypharmacy.co.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/allesleypharmacy.co.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2836,"href":"https:\/\/allesleypharmacy.co.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2827\/revisions\/2836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allesleypharmacy.co.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allesleypharmacy.co.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allesleypharmacy.co.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allesleypharmacy.co.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}