Pfizer Gets Wiser

December 6, 2006 | Filed Under GC as CEO Springboard, Crisis Planning 

The GC-to-CEO phenomenon is still news, I guess. When something happens to a lawyer-led company, the legal background is often noted.

Today’s Wall Street Journal mentions the ex-GC status of Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler in an article about the cessation of clinical tests of the promising heart drug torcetrapib. As the WSJ sees it:

The debacle has revived doubts on Wall Street about whether Mr. Kindler is the right man to run the world’s largest pharmaceutical company. After all, he joined Pfizer only a few years ago, and before becoming CEO functioned only as general counsel. He won out over two industry veterans with deep experience to get the top job. Does he really have what it takes?

Just how stopping development of a drug because of deaths is a debacle will be left to the biotech or stock-picking bloggers out there. Perhaps someone at Pfizer had heard of Vioxx.

But most lawyers (and any GC) has to love the characterization of Mr. Kindler’s prior Pfizer job history as having “functioned only as general counsel.”

Somehow when US CEOs for decades came from finance or marketing or engineering, those disciplines were seen as good seasoning.

Mr. Kindler made a tough call. One driven by the high risks faced by big pharmas imposed by the FDA process, uneven law and gunslinger plaintiff attorneys. Just ask Merck over the aforementioned Vioxx.

Was his GC experience a liability in this case? I think not. I think it was a clear asset.

And, by the way, the real news is that the Pfizer legal department develops exceptional attorneys who deliver creative, bottom-line solutions.

Mere functioning? Hardly.

Mr. Patrick Goes to Boston

November 8, 2006 | Filed Under GC as CEO Springboard, In the News 

Congratulations to Deval Patrick this morning. He was elected governor of Massachusetts by a resounding 56% of the vote.

Mr. Patrick is a former GC of Coca-Cola, and was also the Assistant AG for Civil Rights under President Clinton. He began the race to the statehouse early last year, facing long odds and a much better known opponent (the Lt. Governor). His impressive bio is here.

From Mr. Patrick’s acceptance speech:

You see in common how broken our civic life and how fractured our communities are. You see in common that the poor are in terrible shape and the middle class are one month away from being poor. And you know that government by gimmick and sound bite isn’t working. You know that we deserve better and we are better than that. And for a chance at a better and more hopeful future, you built bridges some of you never thought could be built across all kinds of differences — and then you crossed them.

Run Deval Run...

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