Race on to find new Johnson & Johnson leader
pharmafile | December 16, 2010 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Johnson & Johnson, recruitment
Johnson & Johnson is promoting two of its most senior executives as it prepares to replace William Weldon, its current chairman and chief executive.
Sheri McCoy, who has been running J&J’s pharma group, and Alex Gorsky, previously chief of the company’s medical-devices and diagnostics division, have both been promoted to vice chairmen in the expanded ‘Office of the Chairman’.
The promotions are an explicit part of the company’s succession plan, with its board eventually choosing between the two candidates for the top job.
McCoy, 52, and Gorsky, 50, will divide the company’s various responsibilities. McCoy will take charge of businesses that generate three-fifths of the company’s revenue, while Gorsky will manage more employees.
62-year-old Weldon isn’t expected to step down for at least a year, but he said the changes were an ‘appropriate step’ in ensuring the company’s “long-term succession plans, and assuring talented, experienced leaders at all levels of the organisation.”
The company will hope that it can draw a line under its protracted and highly damaging series of product recalls it has had to make in 2010.
The task of fixing the problems will be divided between McCoy and Gorsky, and will be one of the tests to determine who should eventually be given the top job.
Creating internal competition between senior executives is not uncommon, and was used by GSK, when it set up a three-way contest for its chief executive post in 2008, eventually won by Andrew Witty. The other candidates Chris Viehbacher, and David Stout left the company shortly afterwards, however, turning down a seat on the board and a £2.5m ‘golden handcuffs’ payment.
Johnson & Johnson’s changes add to a flurry of recent changes in a pharma’s boardrooms. Merck recently announced that Kenneth Frazier is to succeed Richard Clark in the position of chief executive.
These succession plans are in stark contrast to the abrupt departure of Jeffrey Kindler, who exited the top job at Pfizer on 6 December, to be replaced by Ian Read, who had not been positioned to replaced Kindler.
Reports suggest that Pfizer’s board of directors had tried to promote Read to the number two position in November, but Kindler blocked this, a decision which precipitated his forced departure.
Ben Adams
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