Even as Perrigo pares down its staff in an ongoing restructuring effort, the pharma is expanding its executive team.
Perrigo announced Monday that it has added a brand-new position to its C-suite: chief brand and digital officer, an executive VP role. First to take on the title is David Ball, Ph.D., who will be tasked with heading up the company’s overall marketing strategy, including exploring new areas of opportunity in the market and building out its consumer-facing branding work.
Perrigo has assembled a portfolio of over-the-counter drugs and self-care products, including Opill, which last year became the first birth control medication approved by the FDA for OTC sales. Ball arrives at the company with quite a bit of experience in the consumer health space. Most recently, he was posted in Bayer’s consumer division, joining in 2019 as senior marketing director of its consumer health accelerator, before moving on to other marketing leadership roles at its (now-defunct) vitamin and supplement subscription service Care/of and in its U.S. digestive health business.
Before that, Ball spent the better part of a decade at Procter & Gamble. He started at the consumer goods giant in various R&D positions within the baby, beauty and feminine care divisions, before moving into marketing roles for P&G health brands like Metamucil and DayQuil and NyQuil, culminating in a stint as marketing director of new ventures in the personal health care segment.
“We are excited to welcome David to the Perrigo team. His wealth of experience and deep understanding of consumer insights will be invaluable in shaping and executing our brand strategies,” Perrigo CEO Patrick Lockwood-Taylor said in this week’s announcement. “David’s leadership as a seasoned executive will strengthen our global over-the-counter business and support our blended-branded strategy.”
The new hire comes amid a multiyear cost-cutting and restructuring initiative that Perrigo has optimistically dubbed “Project Energize.” Unveiled earlier this year, the project is slated to span three years, during which time the company plans to trim around 6% of its total staff, potentially totaling around 550 layoffs from the “approximately 9,000 employees” tallied on its website.
The “investment and efficiency”-focused program is aimed at improving Perrigo’s organizational agility. The pharma has estimated that while the project will incur one-time restructuring and related charges of between $140 million and $160 million, it will ultimately result in savings of between $140 million and $170 million each year, starting in 2026.