Pfizer Inc said that Maurice A. Renshaw, vice president of Pfizer, executive vice president of the Pfizer Consumer Group, and president of the Pfizer Consumer Healthcare Division, has announced his intention to retire early in 2003.
Pfizer also said that Marc E. Robinson, currently president of Pfizer Consumer Healthcare's North America region, has been named the new president of the Consumer Healthcare Division, effective January 1, 2003. Robinson will report to Pfizer Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Hank McKinnell and will serve as a member of the Pfizer Management Council.
"By his leadership and innovation over the past two years since our merger with Warner-Lambert, Maurice Renshaw has driven the growth of our Consumer Healthcare Division, building on the worldwide trend toward greater self-care," said Dr. McKinnell. "Maurice has also been a significant contributor to our successful integration of the two organizations. On behalf of my Pfizer colleagues and Maurice's friends in business and medicine, I thank him and wish him well."
A native of Australia, Renshaw received a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree from Sydney University and joined Parke-Davis-the prescription medicine and over-the-counter healthcare division of Warner-Lambert-in Australia in 1974. He rapidly advanced through a series of marketing and general management positions in several countries with responsibility for consumer products and prescription pharmaceuticals in Asia, Europe and the Americas. As President of Warner-Lambert Japan, Renshaw led a three-fold growth in the size of the business in the early 1990s with the development and execution of key strategic initiatives in pharmaceuticals and particularly in Adams and Schick consumer products.
From 1996 to June 2000, Renshaw served as President of Parke-Davis USA; in 1998, Warner-Lambert appointed him a corporate vice president. During this four-year period, he led the Warner-Lambert pharmaceutical business to unprecedented growth of over 500% to $6 billion and was responsible for the successful launch of Lipitor, the world's leading cholesterol-lowering medicine and the largest-selling pharmaceutical of any kind.
A graduate of the University of Michigan with a BA in economics and an MBA in marketing, Robinson joined Warner-Lambert in 1986. He served in a variety of consumer healthcare and confectionary marketing positions, both domestic and international, of increasing responsibility. In 1996, Robinson was appointed general manager, European Business Process Improvement, responsible for the successful implementation of major information technology advances.
In 1999, he became regional president of Warner-Lambert in Australia and New Zealand, managing all aspects of the pharmaceutical, consumer healthcare, and shaving products businesses as well as manufacturing. Since he became president of Pfizer Consumer Healthcare's North America region in 2000, the division has grown well in excess of industry rates and, last year, introduced Listerine PocketPaks, the number one selling item in the gum/mint category with retail sales exceeding $175 million in less than a year.