With today’s news that Johnson & Johnson’s Sheri McCoy is replacing Andrea Jung as CEO of Avon Products , the Fortune 500 now has two cases of woman-to-woman handoffs.
The first? Xerox , where Ursula Burns succeeded Anne Mulcahy two years ago.
That transition has been a good one. While Avon is mired in all sorts of trouble–including an unsolicited $10 billion takeover bid from fragrance giant Coty–this succession also looks like a smart one.
McCoy, who ranks No. 10 on Fortune‘s Most Powerful Women list, has the broad experience in consumer and beauty businesses that Avon has been looking for since it announced last December that Jung would step down as CEO. At J&J, McCoy runs global pharma and consumer, which includes skincare brands Neutrogena, Lubriderm, and Aveeno as well as Band-Aids. Her J&J units generated $39.3 billion in sales last year, which is more than three times Avon’s $11.3 billion in 2011 revenue.
Avon’s board began pursuing McCoy in late February, as soon as she lost a close CEO succession race at J&J to Alex Gorsky. Avon lead director Fred Hassan, on the board’s three-person CEO search committee, knew McCoy from pharmaceutical circles. Hassan is the former chairman and CEO of Schering-Plough, now part of Merck .
While the Avon board considered other candidates, including Wal-Mart executive Brian Cornell who recently joined PepsiCo , the directors agreed that McCoy was the right package. She has technical experience that could help Avon with its R&D. She started at J&J as a chemical engineer in the company’s labs 30 years ago and holds patents for her work. McCoy has held jobs in marketing and operations–running baby care, wound care, and surgical care–and now her broad responsibilities at J&J include information technology. IT has been a trouble spot at Avon.
Most importantly for an Avon workforce that has been demoralized and downsized, McCoy seems to have the right leadership style. She is known as a collaborative manager who talks openly about juggling career and family and urges people at J&J to pay attention to both. She is a mother of three sons–no daughters. But at “the company for women,” as Jung labeled Avon, such work-life experience is practically the price of entry.
McCoy will have help at Avon, incidentally. Jung, who has been the longest-serving female CEO in the Fortune 500 since she took charge 13 years ago, is slated to continue as chairman for two more years. Jung isn’t talking to the press right now, but word is, she plans to focus on working with Avon’s Foundation and with the company’s 6.4 million sales representatives–including the newest rep at the top.
