I first met Dave Ricks in 2017 as part of our search to expand Adobe’s board of directors. We wanted a CEO who shared our commitment to investing in innovative platforms that would serve customers for decades. Equal parts visionary and pragmatist, Dave has a deep appreciation for the power of science and technology to help people lead better and more productive lives. Over the course of his 28-year tenure at Eli Lilly, Dave and his team have pursued some of the most complex diseases and accelerated the company’s delivery of new medicines around the world, helping millions of people manage illnesses like diabetes, obesity, and autoimmune conditions. His foresight and bold moves have put Lilly on a path to become the most valuable pharmaceutical company in the world, with the blockbuster success of GLP-1-based medicines like tirzepatide, which treats diabetes as Mounjaro and obesity as Zepbound. What stands out to me, as someone who knows him well, are his humility, fierce determination, and approachability—and the mindset it takes to contribute and learn.
Narayen is the chair and CEO of Adobe
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