Richard Kaeser

Richard Kaeser has been with Johnson & Johnson since May of 2011, where they started as the Vice President of Sales. In this role, Richard was responsible for leading the U.S. Sales and Commercial Operations teams; a business that brought in around $300MM. This required managing a national sales team of 3 regional directors, 17 division managers, 8 corporate account directors, 93 vascular sales representatives, 93 clinical specialists, 8 inside sales reps, and various back office support functions.

During their time with Johnson & Johnson, Richard was tasked with stabilizing, turning around, and providing vision for growth for the company following the loss of their flagship product (Cypher, drug-eluting stent) and the corresponding major reduction in sales force. In order to do this, Richard developed and implemented a new go-to-market strategy designed to regain lost market share in key product areas and provide flexibility to scale with evolving market and customer needs. Part of this process included hiring and training over 75 new sales reps in a 3-month period to expand the sales footprint in order meet new strategic objectives; reducing sales force attrition from ~40% in 2011 to ~9% by October of 2012. Richard also engineered significant changes to back office operations and organizational structure to improve customer service delivery and make Cordis “easier to do business with”; an internal rally cry for the initiative.

In addition to their work with developing Cordis’s go-to-market strategy, Richard also undertook a major effort to bring health care compliance and inappropriate selling behaviors under control; an undertaking that resulted in an improvement from 77% to 99% compliant. Richard also secured immediate market wins by blowing up an outmoded pricing/contracting model in favor of a new system that leveraged Cordis’s broad portfolio of products for competitive advantage.

Currently, Richard serves as the VP of Global Brand Protection for Johnson & Johnson; a position they have held since June of 2013.

Richard Kaeser graduated from Marist College with a Bachelor's degree in Marketing.

Richard Kaeser reports to Michael Ullmann, EVP & General Counsel. Some of their coworkers include Jane Adams - VP, Federal Government Affairs, Andrea Masciale - VP, Regulatory Policy & Global Analytics, Worldwide Government Affairs & Policy, and Calvin W. Schmidt - SVP and World Wide Leader, Government Affairs & Policy.