Joaquin Duato

Overview

Joaquin Duato
Born	Template:MONTHNAME 1962 (age 63) Valencia, Spain
Citizenship	Spain; United States
Education	Undergraduate degree in economics
Alma mater	ESADE Business School; Thunderbird School of Global Management
Occupation	Business executive
Employer(s)	Johnson & Johnson
Known for	First non-United States-born chief executive officer of Johnson & Johnson; digital health and portfolio transformation at Johnson & Johnson
Title	Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Term	CEO (2022–present); chairman (2023–present)
Predecessor	Alex Gorsky
Board member of	Hess Corporation; U.S.-Spain Council; UNICEF USA; Save the Children; Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America; Tsinghua University School of Pharmaceutical Sciences advisory board
Children	2
Awards	Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association Honorable Mentor award (2017); listings among leading Hispanic business executives

🌍 Joaquin Duato (born April 1962) is a Spanish-American business executive who has served as chief executive officer of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) since January 2022 and as chairman of its board since 2023, becoming only the eighth chief executive in the company’s history and its first leader born outside the United States. Over more than three decades at J&J he rose from country-level roles in Europe to lead the company’s global pharmaceuticals division, later steering a strategic refocus on pharmaceuticals and medical technology, the separation of the consumer health business into Kenvue, and major transactions such as the $16.6 billion acquisition of heart-pump maker Abiomed, while promoting digital health, data science and artificial intelligence as central to the group’s future.

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Early life and education

🧒 Family background and early influences. Duato was born and raised in Valencia, Spain, in a family closely connected to healthcare: his mother worked as a nurse, his grandfather was a pediatrician and his grandmother ran a local pharmacy, exposing him from an early age to the role of medicine in community life. He has recalled his grandfather’s advice that a person’s work should be something they are proud to represent, a maxim that later resonated with Johnson & Johnson’s Credo-based culture and its emphasis on putting patients first. As a boy he was an enthusiastic tennis player who once dreamed of competing professionally for Spain, but he ultimately redirected his ambitions from the tennis court to the corporate world while retaining the sport’s lessons in discipline and strategy.

🎓 Academic training and international outlook. After completing secondary education in Spain, Duato earned an undergraduate degree in economics before pursuing graduate business studies, obtaining an MBA from ESADE Business School in Barcelona and a Master’s in International Management from Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona. This combination of European and American training gave him a multicultural perspective and fluency in both Spanish and English, attributes that later proved valuable as he managed businesses across continents. Decades after graduating he was invited back to Thunderbird as a commencement speaker, underscoring how his career came to be seen as a model of global leadership in the healthcare industry.

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Career

💼 Early roles at Johnson & Johnson. Duato joined Johnson & Johnson in 1989 as a junior employee in the Janssen Pharmaceutica unit in Spain, beginning a long association with the company’s pharmaceutical segment. During the 1990s he held a series of increasingly senior European roles, including serving as managing director of Janssen-Cilag in Italy and later as head of Ortho Biotech’s operations across Europe, where he gained experience in launching and growing therapeutics in diverse regulatory and reimbursement environments. In 2002 he moved to the United States to become vice president for Ortho Biotech’s oncology franchise, and in 2005 he was appointed president of Ortho Biotech Products, overseeing a portfolio of cancer and specialty medicines in the U.S. market.

🌍 Leadership of the pharmaceuticals division. In January 2011 Duato was named worldwide chairman of Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceuticals business at a time when the division faced competitive pressures and patent expiries. Under his leadership the unit was repositioned around a smaller number of core therapeutic areas and unmet medical needs, with a heightened emphasis on research and development productivity and innovative commercial approaches. The strategy yielded a series of important drug launches, such as the prostate cancer treatment Zytiga, and helped transform J&J’s pharmaceuticals arm into one of the company’s primary growth engines, significantly increasing its contribution to group revenues and earnings.

🏢 Executive committee and operational oversight. In 2018 Duato was promoted to vice chairman of Johnson & Johnson’s executive committee, effectively becoming second-in-command with responsibility for both the Pharmaceuticals and Consumer Health segments as well as global supply chain and information technology functions. During the COVID-19 pandemic he temporarily served as interim chief information officer, helping oversee the resilience of J&J’s digital infrastructure and supply chains so that essential medicines and medical products could continue to reach patients despite widespread disruption.

🧬 Chief executive and chairman. Duato succeeded Alex Gorsky as chief executive officer of Johnson & Johnson on 3 January 2022 and later assumed the additional role of chairman of the board in 2023 following Gorsky’s retirement. His appointment was notable for making him J&J’s first chief executive born outside the United States and one of the few Hispanic leaders in the Fortune 100, reflecting the company’s increasingly global orientation. Upon taking the helm he set out a vision that framed science and technology, particularly data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning, as the primary drivers of future change in healthcare and pledged to invest accordingly in digital capabilities, clinical trial innovation and connected medical devices.

📊 Portfolio reshaping and strategic transactions. As chief executive Duato has overseen a significant reshaping of Johnson & Johnson’s business portfolio. In 2023 the company completed the separation of its long-standing consumer health division – home to brands such as Tylenol and Johnson’s Baby – into a new publicly traded company, Kenvue, enabling J&J to focus its resources on higher-growth pharmaceuticals and medical technology while the spin-off pursued consumer-branded healthcare on a standalone basis. In parallel J&J strengthened its MedTech franchise through acquisitions, most notably the purchase of Abiomed for $16.6 billion in 2022, one of the largest medtech deals of that year and a transaction framed by the company as expanding its capabilities in cardiovascular care.

📈 Corporate performance under his tenure. Despite sector-wide headwinds, Johnson & Johnson’s financial performance during Duato’s early years as chief executive has been described as solid, with 2023 revenues rising to about $85 billion, an increase of 6.5% over 2022, as pharmaceutical sales in particular supported growth and helped the group reclaim its position as the world’s largest healthcare company by revenue. By late 2025 J&J’s share price had reached an all-time high of around $214 per share, reflecting investor confidence in the company’s strategy following the Kenvue split and ongoing investment in innovative medicines and devices. Shareholders who held J&J stock through the separation also received shares in Kenvue, capturing additional value from the reconfiguration of the business.

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Compensation and wealth

💰 Executive compensation. As chief executive of a major multinational healthcare company, Duato receives one of the pharmaceutical industry’s highest pay packages. In 2023, his second year as CEO, Johnson & Johnson reported total compensation of about $28.4 million for him, a 117% increase from the approximately $13.1 million he received in 2022, largely driven by higher stock-based awards. The 2023 figure placed him at or near the top of rankings of biopharmaceutical chief executives by pay, ahead of many peers in the sector. In 2024 his reported total compensation declined modestly to around $24.3 million in line with performance targets and share-price movements but remained well above his initial pay level as CEO.

🏦 Shareholdings and estimated net worth. Most of Duato’s wealth is tied to equity in Johnson & Johnson accumulated over a career of more than three decades. Regulatory filings compiled by investor-tracking services indicate that by late 2025 he beneficially owned roughly 407,793 J&J shares, a stake valued at about $85 million at prevailing market prices, along with a smaller holding of around 4,000 shares in Hess Corporation, where he serves as a director. While substantial, this level of ownership places him well short of billionaire status; his influence at J&J stems primarily from his leadership role rather than from equity control.

🌐 Boards and external roles. Beyond his responsibilities at Johnson & Johnson, Duato has participated in several business, policy and non-profit organisations. He has served on the board of directors of Hess Corporation and on the boards or advisory bodies of organisations such as the U.S.-Spain Council, UNICEF USA, Save the Children and Tsinghua University’s School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and he previously chaired the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) industry association. These external roles have positioned him at the intersection of corporate leadership, health policy and international relations.

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Leadership style and public profile

🧑‍💼 Servant leadership and management approach. Commentators and colleagues commonly describe Duato’s leadership style as a blend of data-driven decision-making and what he calls “servant leadership”, emphasising that leaders “are leading on behalf of others” and that the job is to enable the success of employees, patients and partners. He is known for conducting regular town-hall meetings and for engaging with staff at different levels of the organisation, reinforcing Johnson & Johnson’s Credo as a “north star” for decision-making while advocating investments in scientific innovation and digital technologies.

🎾 Interests and personal demeanor. Away from the boardroom, Duato remains closely associated with tennis, the sport he pursued intensively in his youth, which he credits with teaching him resilience, strategy and the importance of preparation – qualities he later applied in business settings. Profiles frequently characterise him as soft-spoken, approachable and cosmopolitan, noting that he has lived and worked in Spain, Italy and the United States and is fluent in both Spanish and English. During a visit to China he attracted local interest with a light-hearted comment about his fondness for giant pandas, an anecdote that has been used to illustrate a personable side to his leadership image.

🌈 Diversity, equity and inclusion. Having built his career as a Hispanic executive in a largely Anglo-American corporate environment, Duato has been a visible advocate for diversity and inclusion within Johnson & Johnson and the wider healthcare industry. He has credited the experience of working across “three countries and two regions” with broadening his perspective and has sponsored internal affinity groups, including acting as executive sponsor of the African Ancestry Leadership Council, while actively promoting female talent into senior roles. In 2017 the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association recognised him with its Honorable Mentor award for what it described as a strong record of developing and championing women leaders at J&J, and Hispanic business media have listed him among the most influential Hispanic executives in the United States.

📣 Public positioning and societal issues. In public forums Duato tends to adopt a measured tone on political matters, focusing on healthcare access, innovation and health equity rather than on partisan debates. Under his leadership Johnson & Johnson has highlighted commitments to issues such as clinical trial diversity, support for health programmes in underserved communities and sustainability initiatives, including efforts to increase the use of renewable energy in operations. He frequently argues that healthcare is inherently global and that solutions to medical challenges can originate anywhere in the world, urging future business leaders to be “bilingual” in the languages of both science and management.

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Controversies and challenges

⚖️ Opioid litigation and settlement. Duato assumed the chief executive role as Johnson & Johnson was finalising its participation in a broad multistate settlement addressing U.S. opioid litigation. In February 2022 the company and three major drug distributors agreed to implement a $26 billion nationwide settlement resolving thousands of lawsuits related to the marketing and distribution of prescription opioids, with J&J’s share of the payments capped at up to $5 billion over nine years and no admission of wrongdoing. Oversight of the settlement’s implementation and associated remediation programmes became one of the early responsibilities of his tenure as the company sought to turn the page on a significant public health controversy.

🧪 Talc litigation and bankruptcy strategy. An even more protracted challenge for Johnson & Johnson under Duato’s leadership has involved tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging that long-used talc-based baby powder products caused cancer due to asbestos contamination. In 2021, shortly before he became chief executive, J&J employed a strategy sometimes dubbed the “Texas two-step” by creating a subsidiary, LTL Management, to absorb talc-related liabilities and then placing that entity into bankruptcy, aiming to channel current and future claims into a single court-supervised settlement process. After an initial bankruptcy attempt was dismissed by an appellate court in early 2023, the company pursued a revised plan that proposed funding a trust with billions of dollars – at one stage $8.9 billion, later adjusted to $6.5 billion over 25 years – in exchange for broad legal protection against future talc lawsuits. Critics, including some plaintiffs and elected officials, have alleged that these manoeuvres, combined with the spin-off of Kenvue, amounted to an effort to shield valuable consumer brands and corporate assets from jury trials, with a proposed class action in 2024 accusing J&J and its executives, including Duato, of using “fraudulent maneuvers” to avoid compensating cancer victims. Johnson & Johnson has maintained that its talc products are safe and that the restructuring and bankruptcy strategy are intended to deliver fair, timely compensation and bring consistency to litigation outcomes, but the approach has continued to attract scrutiny from courts, lawmakers and consumer advocates.

🚚 Operational headwinds and strategic risks. Like other healthcare companies, Johnson & Johnson has also faced operational and strategic challenges during Duato’s time in senior leadership, including inflationary pressures, supply chain disruptions and the winding down of its single-dose COVID-19 vaccine programme amid competition from mRNA vaccines and concerns about rare side effects. Internally, some employees and observers voiced concern about how major structural changes, such as the Kenvue spin-off and portfolio reshaping, might affect the company’s long-standing culture; Duato has responded by emphasising continuity with the company’s Credo and by positioning the changes as necessary to focus resources on areas with the greatest potential for medical innovation.

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Personal life

🏡 Family and private life. Duato is regarded as relatively private about his personal affairs but has disclosed that he lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and that they have two adult children. He became a naturalised citizen of the United States while retaining his Spanish citizenship, and he has described this dual identity as a source of pride that informs his perspective on global business and multicultural leadership. In interviews he has occasionally referred to family involvement in charitable causes, including shared engagement with Save the Children, where he has served on the board of trustees, reflecting an interest in initiatives supporting children’s health and education.

🗣 Languages and cultural orientation. Fluent in Spanish and English, Duato is comfortable working in diverse cultural settings and often highlights listening and collaboration as core aspects of his leadership approach. Having held leadership roles in Spain, Italy and the United States, he frequently cites his cross-regional experience as evidence that high-performing teams benefit from a diversity of backgrounds and viewpoints, an argument he links to both personal experience and Johnson & Johnson’s business results.

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Recognition and influence

🏅 Symbolic significance and representation. Duato’s elevation to the top of Johnson & Johnson has been cited as a milestone for representation in corporate leadership, as he is one of the relatively few Hispanic chief executives of a Fortune 100 company and the first non-United States-born and first dual-citizen CEO in J&J’s history. Commentators have noted that his background – growing up in a healthcare-oriented family in Valencia, studying business on two continents and building a career across multiple countries – exemplifies the increasingly global nature of the pharmaceutical and medical technology industries.

📚 Awards and rankings. Over the course of his career Duato has been recognised by professional and business organisations. In 2017 the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association presented him with its Honorable Mentor award for his support of female leaders in healthcare, and he has appeared on lists of leading Hispanic executives in the United States compiled by business media. Regional business publications have also highlighted his influence: for example, New Jersey–based outlet NJBIZ ranked him among the most powerful figures in the state’s manufacturing sector, reflecting Johnson & Johnson’s economic presence in its home region.

🚀 Legacy and ongoing impact. As of the mid-2020s analysts often characterise Duato’s impact at Johnson & Johnson as combining continuity with transformation: he has sought to reinforce the company’s long-standing Credo and culture while reorganising its portfolio, emphasising digital health and advanced science and navigating complex legal and operational challenges. Supporters point to the company’s financial performance, expanded medtech capabilities and continued investment in research and development, while critics focus on unresolved litigation and questions about the use of corporate restructurings to manage liability risk, suggesting that assessments of his tenure will continue to evolve as these issues play out.

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