William "Bill" A. Hawkins (born 1954) was the chairman and chief executive officer of

Medtronic Medtronic plc is an American medical device company. The company's operational and executive headquarters are in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and its legal headquarters are in Ireland due to its acquisition of Irish-based Covidien in 2015. While it ...

from 2008 until 2011.

Early life

Hawkins received a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical and biomedical engineering from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

in 1976. He also earned an MBA from University of Virginia's

Darden School of Business The Darden School of Business is the graduate business school of the University of Virginia, a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Darden School offers MBA, PhD, and Executive Education programs. The school was founded ...

in 1982.

Career

Following his graduation from Duke, Hawkins began his medical technology career with Carolina Medical Electronics in 1977. Prior to joining Medtronic in 2002, Hawkins was the president and CEO of Novoste from 1998 to 2002. Hawkins is a member of the board of visitors of Duke's engineering school. In 2016, he was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

for leadership in biomedical engineering and translational medicine.

References

Living people 20th-century American businesspeople 1954 births University of Virginia Darden School of Business alumni Medtronic people Duke University Pratt School of Engineering alumni {{US-CEO-stub