J&J Exec Leaves for Avon
April 10th, 2012 // 12:52 pm @ jmpickett
Having lost the horse race to succeed Bill Weldon as ceo at Johnson & Johnson, Sheri McCoy has resigned to become ceo at the Avon cosmetics marketer. The move comes two months after the J&J board chose Alex Gorsky over McCoy, 53, who was a member of the executive committee and held a variety of positions at the health care giant since she arrived 30 years ago to work as a scientist.
Her departure also follows a tumultuous period for J&J, which has suffered more than two years of controversy over manufacturing gaffes and product recalls that led to a consent decree; highly publicized congressional hearings; government investigations; hundreds of job losses; the closure of a key plant; a reorganization of its consumer health unit; eroded consumer confidence; numerous lawsuits, and hundreds of millions of dollars in lost sales.
The recalls, for those of you who may have lost track, involved a variety of items, from such venerable over-the-counter medications as Tylenol and Motrin, to hip implants, contact lens, syringes and assorted prescription drugs. In all, tens of millions of products were withdrawn, in particular, posing a challenge to regain shelf space for consumer healthcare items in stores.
Prior to her promotion to vice chair in late 2010, McCoy was worldwide chair of the pharma group. Gorsky, 51, had been overseeing the medical devices and diagnostics business. In a statement, Weldon thanked McCoy for helping to bring “a stronger strategic focus†to the pharma biz and to the beleaguered consumer business “as it leverages the success of its iconic brands and worked to resolve some recent challenges.â€
McCoy joins Avon one week after the door-to-door beauty-products company rejected a $10 billion proposal to be acquired by Coty, a smaller rival. You can watch McCoy in this 2011 interview with Bloomberg News as she briefly discusses the pharma pipeline and the mishaps at the McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit…
