Faculty and Research

Raymond V. Gilmartin is Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School, where he is teaching Building and Sustaining Successful Enterprises, a second year elective in the MBA program. He is also teaching in Executive Education programs, including Leading Science-Based Enterprises.   He is the former Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Merck & Co.,Inc., a global research driven pharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, manufactures and markets innovative vaccines and medicines.

Mr. Gilmartin joined Merck as President and Chief Executive Officer in June 1994 and was named to the additional position of Chairman of the Board in November 1994. He served in those capacities until May 2005. In July 2006, he joined the faculty at Harvard Business School.

Prior to joining Merck, Mr. Gilmartin served as Chairman, President and CEO of Becton Dickinson, a global company that develops, manufactures and markets medical devices and diagnostic products. He joined that company in 1976 as vice president, strategic planning, and took on positions of increasing responsibility over the next eighteen years.

Mr. Gilmartin serves on the board of General Mills, Inc. and the Microsoft Corporation. He is the past Chairman of the Board of Directors of The United Negro College Fund and has served on the Board of Dean's Advisors for the Harvard Business School.

An active participant in health industry affairs worldwide, Mr. Gilmartin co-chairs the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. He is a member of the Faculty Advisory Committee of the Harvard Program for Health System Improvement, is a past chair of the Healthcare Leadership Council and was a board member of the Alliance for Healthcare Reform. In addition, he is the past chair of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and a past president of the International Federation of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations. Mr. Gilmartin also has been involved in global economic and trade issues that concern the pharmaceutical industry. He was a member of the President's Export Council and is a past chair of the Council on Competitiveness. He was a member of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue and of the Trade and Poverty Forum, a project of the German Marshall Fund.

Mr. Gilmartin received a BS in electrical engineering from Union College in 1963 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1968.