Johnson and Johnson names CEO as new chairman

Johnson and Johnson has announced the appointment of Alex Gorsky as the new chairman of its board of directors.

Mr Gorsky, the current chief executive officer (CEO) of the multinational company, will assume the chairman title and associated additional leadership responsibilities on December 28th 2012.

He has been appointed as the successor to Bill Weldon, who will be retiring from the company in the first quarter of next year after a brief transitional period.

Presiding director James Cullen said: "The board gave thoughtful and rigorous consideration to our governance structure and determined that combining the chairman and CEO positions under the strong leadership of Alex Gorsky will benefit all our stakeholders."

The firm will also be expanding the duties and responsibilities of the independent presiding director to include more direct involvement in stakeholder communications, executive performance evaluations, agenda-setting and succession planning.

According to its most recent financial report, Johnson and Johnson experienced year-on-year growth of 6.5 percent in the third quarter of 2012.