Harry M. Kraemer, president and CEO of Baxter International Inc., discusses the crisis of values that CEOs and leaders of companies deal with every day in the workplace, and also offers insight on how companies can develop value-based organizations. Kraemer has been with Baxter for 22 years and was elected CEO in 1999. Kraemer is introduced by Orit Gadiesh, Chairman of Bain & Company.
Harry M. Jansen Kraemer, Jr. is an executive partner with Madison Dearborn, a private equity firm based in Chicago and also a clinical professor of management and strategy at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. He is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Baxter International Inc., a $9 billion global healthcare company. He became Baxter's chief executive officer in January 1999, and assumed the additional responsibility of chairman of Baxter's board of directors in January 2000. Mr. Kraemer joined Baxter in 1982 as director of corporate development. His twenty two year career at Baxter included senior positions in both domestic and international operations. In 1993, he was named senior vice president and chief financial officer. Over the next several years, he assumed additional responsibility for Baxter's Renal and Medication Delivery businesses. In April 1997, Mr. Kraemer was named president of Baxter International Inc. Mr. Kraemer is active in business, education and civic affairs. He serves on the board of directors of Science Applications International Corporation and Sirona Dental Systems GmbH, and on the board of trustees of Lawrence University, Northwestern University, the Conference Board and Evanston Northwestern Healthcare. He is a member of the Dean's Advisory Board of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, the Dean's Advisory Board of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Advisory Board of LEK Consulting.
Orit Gadiesh is chairman of Bain & Company, Inc. and a world-renowned expert on management and corporate strategy. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and was a Baker Scholar. She is a member of the International Advisory Board at Haute Ecole Commerciale in France. She is also a member of the Foundation Board for the World Economic Forum, and on the Board of Directors of The Peres Institute for Peace as well as the Council on Foreign Relations, and a trustee for Eisenhower Fellowships and a member of the Business Committee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.