Robert Ford was named Abbott's President and Chief Operating Officer, with responsibility for all of the company's operating businesses, in October 2018. He was appointed to Abbott's Board of Directors in November 2019 and will succeed Miles D. White as Chief Executive Officer on March 31, 2020.
Previously Mr. Ford served as Executive Vice President, Medical Devices, where he led our Diabetes Care, Cardiovascular and Neuromodulation businesses. He joined Abbott's Diagnostics division in 1996 as a Business Unit Manager in Diabetes Care. He subsequently held various positions of increasing responsibility for Abbott's Diagnostics, Nutrition and Diabetes Care businesses.
Mr. Ford earned a bachelor's degree from Boston College and a master's degree in business administration from UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business.
Abbott Laboratories is an American medical devices and health care company with headquarters in the Abbott Park Business Center in Lake Bluff, Illinois, United States. The company was founded by Chicago physician Wallace Calvin Abbott in 1888 to formulate known drugs; today, it sells medical devices, diagnostics, branded generic medicines and nutritional products. It split off the research-based pharmaceuticals into AbbVie in 2013.
Among its well-known products across the medical devices, diagnostics, and nutrition product divisions are Pedialyte, Similac, Ensure, Glucerna, ZonePerfect, FreeStyle Libre, i-STAT and MitraClip.
