Dear Jeff,
You made $11 million last year, you just fired 10,000 employees, and you got a 36% raise this year.
And that’s the problem.
You can’t cut back and fire ten thousand hardworking people, ask the remaining employees for sacrifices, and then accept a 36% raise in base pay.
That makes you lose credibility. (And I’m not even taking into account how you fell flat on your face, trying to hype torcetrapib.)
Your predecessor, Dr. Hank McKinnell, was shipped out of Pfizer dressed in tar and feathers, holding his $200 million grab bag, to the sound of employees and shareholders chanting “Give it back, Hank.” The WSJ even wrote an article with the headline “Off with their heads,” based on Pfizer’s executive pay for non-performance.
If you read what your employees are saying, such as this, you will realize you just lost their respect; they’ve stopped calling you Kindler and replaced that with Swindler.
And without those employees and their support, you are just one man, putting his legs into his pants, one at a time, like the rest of us.
Without the support of your employees, you will fail, just like your predecessor.
Jeff, please act like a leader: Don’t accept the raise.
You already made $11.4 million in 2006. You can afford to do the right thing.
Best regards,
Peter Rost
PETER ROST, M.D., is a former Vice President of Pfizer. He became well known in 2004 when he emerged as the first drug company executive to speak out in favor of reimportation of drugs. He is the author of “The Whistleblower, Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman.” See: http://the-whistleblower-by-peter-rost.blogspot.com/