The DePauw Connection
Holly Barce ’80, advisor, global customer insights Erica Bennett ’13, senior marketing associate Rob Brown ’83, senior vice president, marketing and chief marketing officer Leslie Daugherty ’80, consultant, clinical pharmacology Tom Fagan ’98, senior director, global Alzheimer’s commercialization Phyllis Ferrell ’94, vice president, Alzheimer’s disease platform Gwen Haehl ’08, associate brand manager, marketing John Hixon ’79, senior director and head of global new product planning Emily Liffick ’99, medical advisor, global product safety Scott MacGregor ’95, global communications director, Lilly biomedicines Kyle Moore ’11, senior marketing associate Kati Monroe ’99, manager, clinical trial project management, neuroscience Meghan Myrehn ’12, marketing associate Kathy Pearson ’87, senior director, market research, Lilly bio-medicines (daughter Sarah Pearson ’18 attends DePauw now) Related ties Claire Farrand, consultant-data sciences and solutions (worked in IT at DePauw from 1983-84 and took classes; her husband received a Master’s degree from DePauw) Ashraff Rampersaud, regulatory consultant (son attended DePauw) Keith Johns, senior marketing director (daughter, Elizabeth Johns ’20, is actively trying to raise $10,000 for the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America)
18 DEPAUW MAGAZINE SPRING 2017
learnings, observations, ideas, creativity, perspective and whatever will help us solve the problem,” she said.
LIBERAL ARTS FOR LIFE AND WORK
Ferrell credits much of her DePauw experience to paving the way for her career and for her life outside of work. She was an economics major, Rector Scholar, Management Fellow and member of Pi Beta Phi sorority. She went on to earn a MBA degree and certificate in public management in health care from Stanford University. Though another university had offered her a full ride scholarship, Ferrell was drawn to the business opportunities within a liberal arts environment like DePauw. “DePauw grads do a really good job of bridging emotional and rational thinking. The ones that know how and when to bring emotion into the discussion, and vice versa, need to know how/when to keep it out, are the ones that can really lead teams,” Ferrell says, “I see this in successful DePauw grads at Lilly. Maybe it is akin to living in a sorority or fraternity, you have to look for ways to do the right thing, be persuasive, and live in harmony.” Tom Fagan, senior director, international commercial leader at Eli Lilly and 1998 DePauw graduate, knows firsthand the importance of separating work and personal life. Fagan and Ferrell met during his prospective student interview for DePauw’s Management Fellows program, where Ferrell was his interviewer. They have been colleagues off and on during the past 20 or so years, but friends throughout. Fagan is currently part of the core AD team. Perhaps it is Indianapolis’ proximity to Greencastle, or the Eli Lilly connection
RIGHT: During the 2017 National Alzheimer’s Summit, Barkman (second from right), participates in a panel.
to the town that draws graduates to the pharmaceutical giant. The DePauw bookstore, Eli’s, is named for Lilly and stands as a nod to his early pharmaceutical ventures, one of which was located near where the bookstore now operates on the Greencastle Town Square. More likely, however, is the missional connection and liberal arts experience that Lilly embodies. All told, there are 14 DePauw graduates who work in or with the AD team at Lilly. There is a strong understanding that the liberal arts lens provides an ideal way to look at complex problems like diseases, and solutions will not be found within one discipline. Ferrell talks about the ‘white space challenge’ of Alzheimer’s disease: researchers don’t have all of the answers yet. “Our world is changing at an incredible pace, and just knowing how to be successful today won’t ensure success tomorrow. The Pharmaceutical business is incredibly complex and there is not a single problem that we tackle than can (nor should) be evaluated through just one perspective,” Ferrell said. “Financial, regulatory, scientific, ethical, legal, and customer considerations all have to come together into one solution, and often those perspectives don’t all align – there isn’t a day that goes by where we don’t have to balance multi-discipline thinking into our decision making.”
LOOKING FURTHER INTO THE UNKNOWN
When the results of sola were announced, leadership agreed that even in hindsight investing in the research was the right path to take. “The whole Lilly team is beloved by everyone including their competitors,”