Gary Cohen is Executive Vice President and President, Global Health and Development at BD (Becton, Dickinson & Co), a global medical technology company with over $12 billion in global revenues and 45,000 employees operating in 180 countries. He has served as an executive officer of the company since 1996.
In addition to his responsibilities at BD, Mr. Cohen is board co-chair of GBCHealth (a coalition of companies leveraging their resources for positive impact on global health), and a board director of the Perrigo Company, CDC Foundation, US Fund for UNICEF and Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of Grand Challenges Canada, and previously served as a Commissioner on the United Nations Commission on Life Saving Commodities for Women and Children. Mr. Cohen is the founder and board chair of Together for Girls, a partnership consisting of five UN agencies, the Governments of the United States and Canada and other partners to end violence against children, particularly sexual violence against girls, presently operating in 21 countries in Africa, Asia, Central America and the Caribbean. He is a member of the UN Secretary General’s Network of Men Leaders, associated with the UNITE campaign to end violence against women and girls.
Mr. Cohen and BD engage in extensive in cross-sector collaboration to address unmet health needs globally, including among high disease burden, low resource populations; utilizing various methods such as social investing, CSR and shared value creation. He and the BD team work in collaboration with international agencies, governments and non-government organizations, focused on specific health goals such strengthening clinical and laboratory practices, addressing infectious and non-communicable diseases, reducing maternal and newborn mortality and improving safety for health workers and patients. Mr. Cohen frequently serves as an advisor, advocate and expert speaker on topics associated with advancing health and human rights, in various venues which have included the United Nations, World Bank, World Health Assembly, U.S. Department of State, Clinton Global Initiative and World Economic Forum-Davos.
Mr. Cohen began his career with BD in 1983 as a marketing research analyst. In 1988, as a senior product manager, he initiated the company’s comprehensive efforts to protect clinicians and other health workers from needle stick injuries, a strategy he continued to lead for several decades. He became president of BD’s global Injection business in 1994. In 1996, he was named president of Sample Collection (now Preanalytical Systems). The following year, he was also appointed president of BD for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He held the positions of executive vice president of the company from 1998 to 1999, president of the Medical Segment from 2000 to 2008 and executive vice president responsible for international operations from 2009 to 2012. He earned his B.A. and M.B.A. degrees at Rutgers University, where he previously served as a member of the Board of Trustees. He has been honored for his humanitarian work by MESAB (Medical Education for South African Blacks), B’nai B’rith International, the US Fund for UNICEF, the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation (for support in the Democratic Republic of Congo), the American Jewish Committee and the Nyumbani Home for HIV positive children in Kenya. In 2016 he was named a Rutgers 250 Fellow and an Influential Leader by the AACSB. BD was named by Fortune Magazine as one of 50 Companies Changing the World in 2015 and 2016, only one of ten companies worldwide to achieve this distinction in both years.