强生新CEO人选水落石出

    关注强生公司（Johnson & Johnson）的人以及该公司内部很多人都曾断言，谢莉•麦柯伊将成为这家医疗保健产品巨头的新任首席执行官。然而，强生公司于本周发布声明，首席执行官职位将由亚历克斯•戈尔斯基接任。

    这到底是怎么回事？

    据接近强生的消息灵通人士透露：两年前，接替比尔•韦尔登、担任公司首席执行官的竞争正式拉开了帷幕，作为候选对象的两位副总裁势均力敌、难分伯仲。有些人推测，51岁的戈尔斯基在销售领域拥有丰富经验，因此董事会对他尤为青睐；而53岁的麦柯伊却是从科研领域起家。然而，事情没这么简单。结果证明，强生公司面临一系列产品召回和制造问题的事实对董事会产生了重大影响。他们认为戈尔斯基最大的优势在于执行力。因此，尽管他和对手麦柯伊在这场竞争中齐头并进，但他的才能相当符合强生公司对新任首席执行官的要求。

    强生需要一位强势的老板。即将于4月份上任的戈尔斯基在这方面堪称训练有素。他毕业于西点军校（West Point），曾在美国陆军服役六年，担任游骑兵，1988年开始从事药物销售。他在强生公司内部获得晋升的同时也取得了沃顿商学院（Wharton）的MBA学位。离开强生后，他接手了诺华制药公司（Novartis）美国的制药业务。后来他重返强生，负责医疗器械和诊断分部至今。这个部门去年创收258亿美元。深挖制造和供应链方面存在的问题为他赢得了不少加分。

    如果强生公司不是因为饱受执行力问题的困扰，麦柯伊或许还有机会在这场竞争中最终胜出。她领导的药物和消费者业务规模更大，去年创造了393亿美元的销售额。她同时还负责海外IT业务。她的主要优势在于协同合作的工作风格以及对文化建设的驾轻就熟。作为三个儿子的母亲，她常常开诚布公地讨论自己如何处理事业和家庭的平衡问题，并鼓励公司管理者们同时兼顾两方面。她最初是一位化学工程师，30年前就进入强生公司实验室，后来转到营销部门工作，开始负责婴儿产品、创口护理和外科手术护理产品。拥有60,000名下属员工的她在《财富》杂志（Fortune）“全球最具影响力商界女性”排行榜中名列第十。

    鉴于目前的情况，麦柯伊是否会离开强生另择良木而栖？她并未表态。（她在昨晚给我的一封电子邮件中写道，“正如你想象的那样，目前确实发生了很多事情，我并未接任首席执行官职位。但我非常感激你来信询问。”）有些人猜测她可能会参与竞争医疗设备制造商史塞克（Stryker）公司或者雅芳（Avon）公司的高管职位。雅芳公司董事会正在寻找接替现任首席执行官钟彬娴的合适人选。如果她决心要做财富五百强公司的首席执行官，她很可能会将这些机会纳入考虑范畴。

    但现实情况是，和上述任何一家公司相比，多年的老东家强生目前赋予麦柯伊的职责都要大得多。况且，人们都知道，她与即将上任的新老板戈尔斯一直以来关系融洽，所以麦柯伊最终很可能决定继续留在强生这个能给她带来最大权势的地方。

    Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) watchers--and many insiders too--were betting that Sheri McCoy would be the health-care giant's next CEO. This week, the guy, Alex Gorsky, got the job instead.

    What happened?

    The contest to succeed chief Bill Weldon, which started in earnest two years ago, was extremely close between the two vice chairmen, according to my sources close to J&J. While some have speculated that the board favored Gorsky, 51, because he's grounded in sales--while McCoy, 53, began in R&D--the debate ran deeper than this. It mattered greatly to the board, as it turned out, that J&J has had product recalls and manufacturing problems galore. Gorsky's No. 1 strength is viewed to be execution. While he and McCoy jockeyed for the lead in the race, his talent played best into J&J's prescription for its next CEO.

    J&J needs a tough boss, and Gorsky, who will take over in April, is trained in that regard. A West Point grad, he spent six years in the U.S. Army, serving as an Army Ranger. Starting in pharmaceutical sales in 1988, he earned his MBA at Wharton while climbing the corporate ranks. He left J&J to lead Novartis' (NVS) U.S. pharma unit, returned, and went on to head the medical device and diagnostics business, his current job. In that business, which brought in revenue of $25.8 billion last year, he earned points for digging into manufacturing and supply-chain troubles.

    If J&J were not so riddled with execution problems, McCoy might have won the race to the top. She leads the bigger businesses--pharma and consumer, which generated combined sales of $39.3 billion last year--and also oversees IT. But her main strengths are seen to be a collaborative style and finesse at culture-building. A mother of three sons, she talks openly about juggling career and family and urges managers to pay attention to both. Trained as a chemical engineer and entering J&J through the labroom 30 years ago, she moved into marketing and then ran baby products, wound care, and surgical care. Overseeing 60,000 employees today, she ranks No. 10 on Fortune's Most Powerful Women list.

    Given the circumstances, will McCoy leave J&J to become a CEO elsewhere? She's not talking. ("As you might imagine there is a lot happening right now and I am not in a position to connect. But I very much appreciate you reaching out," she wrote to me in an email last night.) Some imagine that she would be a candidate to lead medical-device maker Stryker (SYK) or Avon Products (AVP), whose board is looking to replace CEO Andrea Jung. Makes sense, and she may well consider such gigs if she's determined to be a Fortune 500 CEO.

    But the reality is, McCoy's current charge at her lifetime employer is a much bigger job than she would have at either of those companies. She's known to get along with Gorsky, her new boss, so McCoy may end up deciding that she is most powerful right where she is.