Elanco hires Lilly HR vice president as chief people officer

Elanco Animal Health named Jamie Preston executive vice president and chief people officer on October 22nd, 2026. She comes from Eli Lilly, the company Elanco spun out of in 2018, and starts November 3rd.

Preston succeeds Dave Kinard, who intends to retire at the end of the year and will work alongside her until then.

Elanco goes back to Lilly for its next HR chief

Preston brings 23 years of enterprise experience, nearly two decades of it in HR leadership. Her last job at Lilly was vice president of HR for global compensation and workforce innovation.

Elanco says she led compensation and recognition for Lilly's 50,000-plus employees and drove its AI and workforce modernization work.

She started in Lilly's sales organization. She later ran HR across five Asia-Pacific markets (Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Korea and Hong Kong), served as HR director for Lilly Japan's research and development group, and led global people strategy for the oncology business unit.

CEO Jeff Simmons made the Lilly tie part of the pitch. "Her shared heritage with our roots at Lilly brings a deep understanding of values-based, science-driven organizations," he said.

Kinard leaves a wider job than the one Preston takes

Kinard is a Lilly alumnus too. His executive committee bio says he joined Lilly in 1997, has led Elanco's HR function since the 2018 spin-off, and took his current title in August 2020.

That title is executive vice president of human resources, corporate communications and administration. Elanco did not say who picks up communications and administration once he leaves.

Elanco credited Kinard with overseeing the headquarters move from Greenfield to Indianapolis. That included the One Health Innovation District, a life sciences hub anchored by Elanco and Purdue University.

"Today our employee engagement is the highest since our IPO," Simmons said.

The new people chief walks into a growth year

Preston arrives after Elanco raised full-year guidance for a second straight quarter and finished a $150M Kansas biologics expansion to keep up with demand for its dermatitis injection Befrena. Simmons tied the hire to growth, saying Elanco "continues to drive growth" and that Preston's record on workforce strategy "makes her an ideal fit for our executive team."

So the handoff is short. Kinard stays through year-end, which gives the two about eight weeks to pass over a job that is bigger on paper than the one Preston was hired into.

Source: Elanco Animal Health via PR Newswire