Jim Greffet - Vice President of Sustainability at Eli Lilly and Company

Jim has led ESG efforts at Eli Lilly since September 2020. In this capacity, he oversees implementation of Lilly ESG strategy, has responsibility for coordinating ESG-related communications, and organizing and leading ESG stakeholder interactions.  In a significant advancement of Lilly’s approach, Jim led the development of Lilly’s ESG portal, a comprehensive source for ESG strategy, goals and results.  Jim also chairs the ESG Governance Committee at Lilly, which is a central body for development and execution of ESG priorities and communication to the Executive Committee and Board of Directors.

Prior to his current role, Jim spent two years as a loaned executive to Elanco Animal Health, which was spun out of Lilly in an IPO in 2018.  Jim served as the Vice President of Investor Relations at Elanco.  He was responsible for leading all interactions with Sell-Side Analysts and Buy-Side Investors, including preparation of Earnings materials, participation in Investor Conferences, Non Deal Roadshows and investor visits to Elanco Headquarters.  He conducted investor outreach and targeting to build understanding of the Elanco investment thesis.  He worked closely with External Communications to provide consistent external dialogue and to prepare Elanco Senior Executives on key topics and messaging on relevant issues.  In 2020, Jim was ranked the number one IR leader for mid-cap pharmaceuticals by Institutional Investor.

Prior to the role at Elanco, Jim spent 18 years at Lilly, holding numerous positions of increasing responsibility, including an assignment in Corporate Business Development, managing Lilly’s Venture Capital portfolio.  Jim has also served as the Chief Financial Officer of Lilly Canada, Senior Director of Finance for Lilly Research Laboratories, Manager of Investor Relations, Manager of Treasury Planning and Strategy, Senior Human Resources Representative and Senior Financial Analyst.

Prior to joining Lilly, Mr. Greffet was a Consulting Manager for KPMG Consulting in Indianapolis, Indiana and St. Louis, Missouri.

Jim Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• Eli Lilly’s Approach to ESG
• Lilly’s 30 by 30 initiative to improve healthcare for 30 million people by 2030
• Progress toward goals and targets without the use of carbon offsets
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals

Jim’s Final Five Questions Responses:

What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? 

Two words. Be pragmatic. This was a theme that came up in our conversation. There's the lunatic fringe on everything, and certainly in this space, on both ends of the spectrum. Tie your sustainability work to the purpose of your organization, be pragmatic, think in common sense terms, and you'll make a whole lot more progress. 

What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? 

In the short four and a half years, this world has changed a lot. I think when I first came into it, it was sporadic, voluntary reporting by organizations, maybe a little bit of ‘accentuate the positive.’ It evolved into more rigorous and disciplined financial reporting. Over the last 18 months or so, I think we've seen the heavy hand of regulation start to come about, especially in Europe, which creates a lot more overhead. I think all of us would rather deploy our energy and resources to doing things than reporting about them. So to the exciting part, I now think we're starting to see a little bit more sensibility prevail in some of these regulations, maybe lifting the heavy hand of regulation a little bit so that we can have consistent, rigorous, well constructed reporting that's doable and doesn't take us away from the mission that we have in front of us. I'm optimistic and excited that we're going to land in a spot that's doing the right thing for the right reasons, consuming the right amount of energy. 

What is one book you'd recommend sustainability professionals read? 

George Seraphim, Purpose + Profit. He's a Harvard Business professor and he taught, you can see from the name of that book, Purpose plus Profit. It takes this pragmatic view of why sustainability can help you run your business better, not just be a fringe idea that's detached from what the business is supposed to do. 

What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? 

I'll give one shout out. Brian Matt with the New York Stock Exchange puts out an email each Friday called the ESG Top five. It's the top five sustainability topics of the week. He commits that it's a two minute read. If you get interested, it's going to be more than a two minute read, but you can certainly get the headlines in two minutes. There's certain emails that I can't delete fast enough. That's one that I open every time and I always learn something out of it. 

Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work being done at Eli Lilly? 

Sustainability.lilly.com. My performance is tied to website hits, so all your listeners, please open it up first thing when you get in the morning and hit refresh many times during the day. You'll do me a solid on my performance. Then LinkedIn, I have a LinkedIn page as well that captures some of the stuff we're doing here.