Cynthia Cardona

Cynthia Cardona serves as both President of the Lilly Foundation and Vice President of Social Impact for Eli Lilly & Company, the pharmaceutical company. As President, Cardona leads philanthropic activities to advance racial justice, improve educational outcomes for underserved students, enhance global health outcomes and improve the quality of life for people of Indianapolis, where Lilly is headquartered. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, she has a passion for diversity, equity and inclusion, and working to address inequities of underserved communities.

As head of Lilly's social impact team, she guides the company's civic and investor engagement, employee giving and volunteerism, corporate responsibility reporting, global health partnerships and disaster relief efforts.

Cardona first came to Lilly in 2001 as a pre-MBA diversity fellowship intern and became a full-time employee in 2004. Her experience has spanned from working in primary care sales to holding a variety of consumer and brand marketing leadership positions, including Chief Marketing Officer of Lilly Japan. Most recently, Cardona worked on Lilly's corporate affairs team on strategic enterprise-wide projects, including developing Lilly's corporate messaging and health equity framework.

Cardona serves on the board of the nonprofit, La Plaza, Inc., which provides and connects the Central Indiana Latino population to critical health, educational and other social services. She has earned several degrees from Stanford University, including a BS in civil engineering, an MS in civil/structural engineering, and an MBA with a certificate in public management. She started her career in the non-profit sector working with local scientists, governments and communities in at-risk, underserved areas around the world to prepare against natural disasters.