Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Former Alibaba Group adviser Wei Zhang will join the Starbucks board, Iranian women are still fighting for their rights, and a J&J exec pivoted from Tylenol and Listerine to medtech. Have a restful weekend.
– Powerful pivot. Ashley McEvoy has worked for Johnson & Johnson for 27 years. In the grand scheme of J&J’s 135-year existence, that’s not that long. But for an executive, an almost three-decade commitment to the same company says something.
McEvoy spent the first half of her J&J career in consumer health, overseeing products and brands like Tylenol, Zyrtec, and Listerine. Eventually, though, she felt like she’d learned everything she could about over-the-counter products. “I was bored,” she says.
When J&J bought Pfizer’s consumer health business for $16.6 billion in 2006, its largest-ever purchase at the time, she was the only J&Jer to get promoted into the new business alongside several execs from Pfizer. That experience was formative. “It teaches you to listen to your inner voice to stand up to people who maybe don’t have the same perspective of the future of the business,” she says.
So when her next major opportunity came along, with even more of a learning curve, she felt prepared. In 2009, she became president of Ethicon, J&J’s medical device business. Today, McEvoy is EVP and worldwide chairman for medtech, a $27 billion business with 60,000 staffers, about half of J&J’s employee base. J&J medtech equipment is used in operating rooms for 75 million procedures each year, including for robotics and digital surgeries. “I had to go and learn the science,” she says.
Pulling off that kind of pivot—and earning the respect of doctors and longtime medtech experts after coming in from the consumer side—required a great degree of humility, McEvoy says. Her degree wasn’t even in health; she had been a communications and business major. “Surgeons are amazing—they just want to teach,” she says.
While it was an intimidating to make that kind of transition, McEvoy advises other people to take the leap when presented with similar opportunities. “I’m so grateful I said yes, because I didn’t grow up carrying a bag. I don’t have letters after my name with all these PhDs and MDs. I really had to learn from our people,” she says.
Five years into her worldwide chairman role, McEvoy has taken the business from 1.5% growth to 8% growth. “I’ve tended to go to areas that are not working well, breathing new life into businesses that might be older businesses and have lost their way a little bit and need to be reoriented,” she says. So is she feeling antsy again? McEvoy says she would “absolutely” be interested in a CEO job.
Emma Hinchliffe
[email protected]
@_emmahinchliffe
The Broadsheet is Coins2Day’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Joseph Abrams. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Tragic anniversary. It's been one year since Mahsa Jina Amini died in police custody in Iran; she had been detained after violating a draconian dress code. Even though protests inspired by her death have been quashed by force, Iranian women are still fighting. Time
- Front of the line.Wei Zhang, a former senior adviser to Alibaba Group, will join Starbucks's as a director after founder Howard Schultz announced he was leaving the board this week. Zhang brings years of experience from Alibaba and Ralph Lauren, among others, and will likely advise the company on its booming Chinese market. Coins2Day
- Back to work.Women are returning to the U.K. Labor market in force but only in sectors where hybrid or remote flexibility is offered. Finance, IT, and insurance, for example, are experiencing boosts in female workers; the same can't be said for the hospitality field.Financial Times
- Progress or pointless?Five women now hold seats in Japan’s cabinet, tying a previous record for the country that has traditionally omitted women from leadership positions. However, with three of the women appointed to relatively minor cabinet seats, it appears that men still have a firm grip on positions closest to the prime minister. Bloomberg
- Real-life Succession.Delphine Arnault, the eldest child and only daughter of LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault, was brought up in the business and trained as a possible successor. Now the CEO of Christian Dior Couture and board member at LVMH, Delphine is a top candidate to take over for her father when he steps down. New York Times
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Prologis hired Claire Cormier Thielke as chief investment officer for Asia. HP announced Anneliese Olson as senior vice president and managing director of it North American market. Anzu Partners appointed Cathryn Paine to partner. Notion named Rachel Hepworth as chief marketing officer. Oribe Haircare promoted Andreea Diaconescu to chief marketing and growth officer. Diversified Search Group hired Megan Shattuck as global managing partner. Museum of Ice Cream named Kimberly O'Dell as marketing and e-commerce senior director.
ON MY RADAR
Why are celebrities rushing to defend convicted rapist Danny Masterson?Guardian
They shot at her. They forced her from her home. She won’t stop fighting for girls New York Times
How come no one told me getting pregnant would be this hard? Cosmopolitan
PARTING WORDS
"You know yourself already a lot, and don’t ever forget who you are."
—Melinda French Gates' advice to her daughter, Phoebe Gates, on her 21st birthday
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