James E. Burke

"It became clear that our value system had been vital to our ability to outperform the competition for nearly one hundred years" Burke recalls. As CEO Burke is credited for the growth of Johnson & Johnson to its current size and prominence but he is perhaps best known for his crisis management in 1982 when it was found that Tylenol capsules had been poisoned with cyanide. Following his retirement he was appointed the second chairman of the national nonprofit organization Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA) formed by a consortium of advertising professionals who ran a research-based media campaign to discourage teenage use of illegal drugs such as marijuana.

James E. Burke (February 28 1925 – September 28 2012) was the chief executive officer (CEO) of Johnson & Johnson from 1976 to 1989 a company for which he worked forty years.