Since Jeff Kindler took over as CEO of Pfizer he's kicked out pretty much everyone on the old management team and replaced them with his own acolytes. He's also changed Pfizer's political direction 180 degrees.Observant readers may remember that I was first, writing for BrandweekNRX, revealing that Kindler supported Hillary Clinton for president, and was really a closet Democrat, which was a dramatic change from Dr. McKinnell who was a Bush Ranger and tried to force every employee to support the GOP.
Anyway, turns out in Kindler's new Pfizer only Democrats need to apply--at least that is what his recent hiring of Sally Susman and Amy Schulman would indicate; both of them have a perfect record supporting democrats, just like their new boss.
Pfizer Inc named Sally Susman Senior Vice President of Worldwide Communications and Chief Communications Officer with overall responsibility for Pfizer's global communications, reporting to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Kindler last fall.
This week the company reported that Amy Schulman would become the new general counsel after Kindler pushed out Waxman who was told to retire for "personal reasons."I guess if Dr. McKinnell was dead he would turn in his grave. But he isn't even on the Pfizer board so he has no say anymore and Kindler apparently couldn't care less what his old benefactor thinks. Funny thing is that Kindler pretended to support Bush at all those fancy fundraising dinners as long as McKinnell was around. I guess he was just biding his time to kick out all those conservative stalwarts.
Lesson of all this: Corporations are like tiny little kingdoms and the king does whatever he feels like. Usually he feels like hiring people who think like him, look like him (check out the pics above), and who come from the same background. No change in the last 10, 000 years.
