Obama to Tap ex-Procter & Gamble Chief to Lead Veterans Affairs
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama plans to nominate on Monday former Procter & Gamble (IW 500/12) chief executive Bob McDonald to serve as the next secretary of the beleaguered Veterans Affairs Department, White House officials said.
Obama is tasking McDonald, a West Point graduate, to turn around an agency plagued by allegations of mismanagement and a cover-up of long wait lists for treatment, with several patients dying in the process.
The political scandal last month led to the resignation of Eric Shinseki as Veterans Affairs secretary after a stellar military career.
McDonald served for 33 years at Procter & Gamble, and his tenure there "prepares him well for a huge agency with management challenges in servicing more than eight million veterans a year," a White House official said.
At P&G, McDonald oversaw more than 120,000 employees of the company with operations around the world, selling products in more than 180 countries in more than 2.5 million stores and reaching more than 5 billion customers.
"McDonald's personal and professional history make him the perfect person to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs during this important time," the official added.
His father was an Army Air Corps World War II veteran, and McDonald graduated in the top two percent of his class at the prestigious West Point military academy.
He served in the military for five years before joining Procter & Gamble.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2014
