Editor's note: This story was corrected to note that Brooks will be Eli Lilly's interim CFO.
A little more than a month after Eli Lilly announced chief financial officer Anat Ashkenazi’s departure, the company has landed on a temporary successor to fill her shoes.
Gordon Brooks, currently Lilly's group vice president, controller and corporate strategy, will take the drugmaker's CFO reins on an interim basis on July 15, Lilly disclosed in an SEC filing.
The development comes as Brooks nears his 30th anniversary at the company, according to his LinkedIn profile. He started at Lilly in 1995 as a finance manager in sub–Saharan Africa, eventually climbing to regional CFO roles for Lilly units in Russia, Japan and Europe. In 2010, he took his experience to the CFO role at Lilly’s key Bio-Medicines business unit.
Ashkenazi will remain at the company to facilitate the transition of her responsibilities through the end of July, according to the filing. The exec is set to begin her new role as CFO at Google’s parent company Alphabet on July 31, Alphabet said in a June 5 release.
Over at Alphabet, the Lilly vet will replace the tech giant’s longest-tenured CFO Ruth Porat amid a restructuring that looks to pursue AI initiatives and create “hubs” for more centralized finance operations, Porat said in a previous internal memo.