William C. Weldon (born November 26, 1948) is a former chairman of

Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational corporation founded in 1886 that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company i ...

, He was the eighth chairman in Johnson & Johnson's history of more than one hundred years.

Early life and education

He was born in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were a Broadway stagehand and a costume designer. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology from Quinnipiac University in 1971.

Career

He spent his entire working life at Johnson & Johnson. He joined the company as a sales representative for the McNeil Pharmaceutical division in 1971 and eventually became the head of Johnson & Johnson's

Ethicon Endo-Surgery Ethicon, Inc. is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. It was incorporated as a separate company under the Johnson & Johnson umbrella in 1949 to expand and diversify the Johnson & Johnson product line. Ethicon has manufactured surgical sutures and ...

business in 1992. He became the head of Johnson & Johnson's pharmaceutical operations in 1998 and then became the company's chief executive officer (CEO) in 2002. As CEO, Weldon engineered some of the largest acquisitions in the company's history including the purchase of Alza and Pfizer's consumer-health product line. In 2009, he earned a total compensation of $22,830,834, which included a base salary of $1,802,500, a cash bonus of $12,831,146, stock awards of $2,762,532, option awards of $5,238,069, and other compensation of $196,587. In 2011, '' The New York Times'' named him on its list of "The Worst C.E.O.'s of 2011" for the increased number of Johnson & Johnson product recalls under his leadership. Additionally, as of 2013, his story was a case study at the Leadership & Corporate Accountability course at

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

. In Weldon's first full year as the company's CEO, total revenues increased from $32.3 billion to $36.3 billion and net earnings from $5.7 billion to $6.6 billion. In 2011, his last full year as CEO, revenues were $44.7 billion and net earnings were $9.7 billion. Weldon retired as chairman of Johnson & Johnson on December 28, 2012, and was reported to receive $143.5 million in retirement pay.

Board memberships

He also sits on the JPMorgan Chase & Co. board of directors, the HeartFlow board of directors, the

ExxonMobil ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...

board of directors, the

Fairfax Financial Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited is a Canadian financial holding company based in Toronto, Ontario, which is engaged in property, casualty, insurance and reinsurance, investment management, and insurance claims management. The company operate ...

board of directors, and the Quinnipiac University board of trustees.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weldon, William C. 1948 births 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople American chairpersons of corporations American chief executives of manufacturing companies Businesspeople from New Jersey Businesspeople from New York City Chief executives in the pharmaceutical industry Directors of JPMorgan Chase Johnson & Johnson people Living people People from Brooklyn People from New Brunswick, New Jersey Quinnipiac University alumni Directors of ExxonMobil