Joseph Jimenez is the former

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

of the

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

pharmaceutical company

Novartis Novartis AG is a Swiss multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical company, pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland. Novartis is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and was the eighth largest by re ...

Education

Jimenez earned a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

in 1982, and an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular a ...

from

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California *George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer to ...

Haas School of Business The Walter A. Haas School of Business (branded as Berkeley Haas) is the business school of the University of California, Berkeley, a Public university, public research university in Berkeley, California. It was the first business school at a pub ...

in 1984.

Career

Early career

Jimenez began his career at

Clorox The Clorox Company (formerly Clorox Chemical Company) is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of consumer and professional products. As of 2024, the Oakland, California-based company had approximately 8,000 employees worldwide. N ...

before joining

ConAgra Foods Conagra Brands, Inc. (formerly ConAgra Foods) is an American consumer packaged goods holding company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Conagra makes and sells products under various brand names that are available in supermarkets, restaurants, ...

. Prior to joining Novartis, he was head of

H. J. Heinz Company The Kraft Heinz Foods Company, formerly the H. J. Heinz Company and commonly known as Heinz (), is an American food processing company headquartered at One PPG Place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company was founded by Henry J. Heinz in 186 ...

's North American business from 2002 to 2006. He was also a non-executive director of

AstraZeneca AstraZeneca plc () (AZ) is a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with its headquarters at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in Cambridge, UK. It has a portfolio of products for major diseases in areas includi ...

from 2002 to 2007, as well as an advisor for the

Blackstone Group Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. It was founded in 1985 as a mergers and acquisitions firm by Peter Peterson and Stephen Schwarzman, who had previously worked together at Lehman ...

Novartis

Jimenez joined Novartis in 2007 as Division Head of Novartis Pharmaceutical and was named CEO in 2010 by his predecessor and

Chairman The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...

Daniel Vasella Daniel Lucius Vasella (born 15 August 1953) is a Swiss medical doctor, author, and executive who was CEO and chairman of the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis AG, the world's fifth largest drug company. During his tenure Novartis shares fell 10 ...

. During his time at Novartis, Jimenez increasingly applied standard business metrics to pharma cash flow, purchasing and competitive bidding, confident that his experience in consumer goods would help to realize improvements in Novartis' operations. His cost-cutting moves, focused mostly on marketing and administration, came steadily, with more than a billion cut in 2010, and even more than that in 2011. Jimenez joined the board of directors at

General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...

on June 9, 2015 Jimenez resigned from Novartis, leaving in February 2018, and was succeeded by

Vasant Narasimhan Vasant "Vas" Narasimhan (born August 26, 1976) is an American physician and the chief executive officer of Novartis. He succeeded Joseph Jimenez who left Novartis in 2018. He briefly worked at McKinsey before joining Novartis in 2005, where he ...

. He joined the Board of Directors of San Francisco biotech startup

uBiome uBiome, Inc. was an American biotechnology company based in San Francisco that developed technology to sequence the human microbiome. Founded in 2012, the company filed for bankruptcy in 2019 following an FBI raid in an investigation over possi ...

in September 2018 and stepped down in April 2019 to start the biotech venture fund Aditum Bio. Jimenez also has served on the Board of Directors of Procter & Gamble since 2018, where he is lead independent director. He also serves as Chairman of Century Therapeutics, an iPSC derived allogeneic cell therapy company, and is on the Board of Graphite Bio, a gene therapy company.

References

External links

Joseph Jimenez on Improving Healthcare in Africa - Huffington Post
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jimenez, Joseph Swiss businesspeople Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Novartis people Stanford University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni