GlaxoSmithKline has appointed Emma Walmsley, its current head of consumer healthcare, as its new chief executive.
Ms Walmsley, who joined the UK’s biggest drugmaker in 2010 from L’Oreal, will replace current chief Sir Andrew Witty in March 2017.
Ms Walmsley describes herself as “extremely competitive” with “a bit of a bias for action”.
She will be the firm’s first female chief executive, and one of only seven female FTSE 100 chief executives.
She spent 17 years at French cosmetics firm L’Oreal, where she worked in the UK, Europe, the US and China in marketing and management.
Ms Walmsley joined GlaxoSmithKline in 2010, and became a member of the executive team in 2011, running the division selling products including toothpaste, headache tablets and the malted barley drink, Horlicks.
The firm produces a broad spectrum of medical and consumer products from prescription medicines, vaccines and HIV treatments to skincare products.
‘Delighted and honoured’
Big firms have come under increasing pressure to change a culture where women can find it difficult to get into the boardroom.
Between 2012 and 2014, nearly three quarters of FTSE 100 companies had no female executives at all on their boards.
And data suggests that the gender pay gap widens after women return to work after their first baby.
Ms Warmsley, who is married with four children, will become chief executive of by far the biggest firm in the FTSE 100 with a woman at the top.
