About Kenneth Frazier
Kenneth Frazier, former chairman and CEO of Merck, has spoken extensively about corporate leadership, racial equity, and the importance of taking public stands on social issues. In 2022, he was recognized as International Executive of the Year by the Executives' Club of Chicago. Frazier has described his decision to resign from President Trump's business council after the 2017 Charlottesville comments, stating that he felt an obligation to stand up against what he called "intolerance and extremism." He said his board unanimously supported him speaking to the company's values rather than as an individual. Frazier has also discussed the OneTen initiative, a coalition of companies committed to hiring one million Black Americans without four-year degrees over ten years, describing it as a way to create "family sustaining wages" by making jobs skills-based rather than credentials-based.
Frazier has been outspoken about voting rights, noting that he helped organize a full-page ad signed by about 700 business leaders opposing what he described as undue interference with voting. He has said that "it's a mistake for corporations to take democracy for granted" and that companies should insist on "everyone who's an eligible voter having a fair and equitable opportunity to cast their vote." During the COVID-19 pandemic, Frazier emphasized the need for broad, equitable access to vaccines, stating that "unless all of us are safe none of us are safe." He has also criticized what he called "vaccine nationalism" and urged transparency in vaccine development, saying that pauses in clinical trials should reassure the public that safety systems are working.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Kenneth Frazier's recent appearances.
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Transcript (9 segments)
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Interviewer0:01
There is this movement afoot of social impact and ESG. How are we doing, and what needs to be the next steps in terms of convincing business leaders that it's in the economic self-interest of their businesses to achieve equality?
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Kenneth Frazier0:24
I think many business people understand that, but there is very much a counter-movement underway. My colleagues are afraid of being called woke CEOs. I hear that all the time. I don't know what the opposite of that is—sleep CEOs? I don't know what the opposite of it is. But the fact of the matter is, the great thing about this country is that the freedom we have as a people allows businesses to change. This country changes because business changes. Technology, for example, has changed our society in massive ways.
I think business has to recognize the concept that if we don't provide people with opportunities for economic stability, then our society is going to continue to fail. I'm working with some companies on what's called OneTen. The concept is that we're trying to hire one million African Americans who lack four-year degrees over the next 10 years into family-sustaining wage jobs.
I'm the son of a janitor. Back in the 50s, 60s, and early 70s, companies paid a janitor a family-sustaining wage. He could raise a family, pay his mortgage, and even have a used Oldsmobile. And he had profit sharing. Today in New York City, if you make a minimum wage, you have to work 120 hours in order to pay the rent in a one-bedroom apartment. That is not sustainable in this country. And if business continues to view itself solely as a vehicle for creation of wealth for shareholders, then our country is actually going to fail.
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Interviewer2:10
That's right. And that's why we at The Citizen have tried to champion the stakeholder economy, so that corporations have a fiduciary responsibility not just to shareholders, but to employees, the environment, and the communities in which they operate. But as you say, there is pushback to that, and that's a central tension. I think undergirding this, it goes to the divide: how do we incentivize and reward success, but at the same time create opportunity for everyone? They're not inconsistent. We never viewed them as inconsistent until recently. And I think we've got to ask ourselves as a society: how important is this whole concept, this whole lens of equality? Is that something we still care about, or do we only care about the ability of a few people to get extraordinarily wealthy? I think we have to think about that.
I want to talk to you briefly about this idea of moral leadership, which I think the Judge exuded in his bones. I think you represent it certainly when you speak truth to power. The moral test of our times is when someone speaks truth to power after they become powerful. The Judge certainly did that. You did that. Talk about that in terms of your willingness to do it, what you risked, especially in the Trump situation, and why aren't more people standing up?
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Kenneth Frazier4:00
Well, I think that what Judge Leon Higginbotham was really talking about was his lived experience, and the same with me. People say it took courage to step down from President Trump's Business Council. Frankly, to be honest, it took more courage to go on for me, coming from where I came from. And when the president made his statements after Charlottesville, there was no way that I could have stayed in there because it would be untrue to my background. I know where I came from.
This is the reason why I talk about these issues about equality. I grew up in North Philly. My younger sister and I came along in the birth order when the social engineers in Philadelphia experimented with school desegregation. So we got put on a bus and went to better schools than were available to us in North Philly. There's no way that I cannot point that out. I am the CEO of Merck because the CEO three times removed decided he no longer wanted to have an all-white management team, so he hires me out of a law firm. They thought that was affirmative action. My colleagues, 'Oh my God, they hired a black person.' I sort of did okay.
So having had the experience of having people reach into my community, pull me out, and give me an opportunity reminds me that I believe I achieved a lot in my life. I'm not going to be apologetic, but I didn't earn the opportunity. None of us earns the opportunity in the first place. And as a country, we have to make that opportunity broadly available. Talent is broadly distributed; opportunity is not.
