Kenneth Carleton Frazier (born December 17, 1954) is the Chairman, President and CEO of Merck & Co., and is the first African American to serve as the CEO of a pharmaceutical company.
Frazier, a native of Philadelphia, graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1975 with a BA in Political Science, and attended Harvard Law School.
Frazier joined Merck in 1992, and became general counsel of the company in 2006. As general counsel, he was credited with overseeing the company's defense against Vioxx-related litigation. From 2007 to 2010, he served as executive vice president and president of the company's global human health unit. In 2010, he became Merck's president and on January 1, 2011 its CEO.
On November 11, 2011, as a member of the Penn State board of trustees, the board selected Frazier as chairman of a blue ribbon commission empaneled to investigate a child s*x abuse scandal involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky and allegations of a cover up by university officials.
Kenneth Frazier's commission retained the private law firm Freeh, Sporkin & Sullivan as "Special Investigative Counsel" who then hired Pepper Hamilton, legal counsel for Merck. The report, costing the university $6.5 million was accepted and used as the basis for the NCAA sanctions against Penn State.
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Monday, November 26th 2012 at 1:07PM
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