Ken Frazier didn't just run a drug company. He basically saved the soul of a 130-year-old institution when everyone else was telling him to sell it off for parts. You’ve probably heard his name in the news over the years, maybe when he famously stood up to a president or when Merck’s cancer drug Keytruda started breaking records. But honestly, the real story of Kenneth Frazier is a lot more complex than just a CEO who did well for his shareholders.
He was a lawyer who became a leader. A son of a janitor who became one of the few Black CEOs to ever lead a Fortune 500 company.
When Frazier took the helm of Merck & Co. back in 2011, the "smart money" on Wall Street wanted him to gut the research and development budget. They wanted quick wins. They wanted him to stop taking big, expensive risks on science that might take a decade to pay off. Frazier basically told them no. It wasn't just a polite disagreement; he literally withdrew the company’s earnings guidance within his first month on the job. That’s a move that usually makes investors scream.
He bet the house on science. Specifically, he bet on the idea that if Merck focused on solving human suffering, the profits would eventually follow. It worked. By the time he stepped down as CEO in 2021, Merck's stock had more than doubled, and they had one of the most successful cancer treatments in medical history.
The Vioxx Defense and the Rise of a Legal Legend
Before he was the boss, Kenneth Frazier was the guy Merck called when they were in a massive legal hole. You might remember the Vioxx disaster. It was a massive painkiller recall that threatened to bankrupt the entire company. Most corporate lawyers would have looked at the thousands of lawsuits and suggested a quick, multi-billion-dollar settlement to make the problem go away.
Frazier did the opposite.
He decided to fight. He insisted on taking individual cases to trial, one by one, to prove the science behind the drug and protect the company's reputation. It was a high-stakes gamble. If he lost those early trials, the settlement costs would have exploded. But he won. This "fight every case" strategy saved Merck billions and cemented Frazier’s status as a tactical genius. It also showed a glimpse of the stubbornness—or "principled leadership," depending on who you ask—that would define his tenure as CEO.
Why Kenneth Frazier Resigned from the Manufacturing Council
You can't talk about Kenneth Frazier without mentioning August 2017. This was the moment he went from being a respected business leader to a national figure. After the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Frazier was the first CEO to resign from President Trump’s American Manufacturing Council.
He didn't wait for a committee to vote. He didn't check with a PR firm to see how it would poll. He just did it.
"America’s leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy," Frazier said at the time.
It triggered a literal wave of other CEOs following his lead until the council basically dissolved. For Frazier, it wasn't about politics; it was about the basic social contract. He’s often said that a company can’t thrive in a society that is falling apart. That belief has driven almost everything he’s done since leaving the corner office.
Life After Merck: OneTen and the Venture Capital Pivot
So, what is he doing now? If you thought he’d just go play golf, you don't know the guy. Kenneth Frazier is currently the Chairman of Health Assurance Initiatives at General Catalyst, a big-time venture capital firm. He’s helping find and fund the next generation of healthcare companies, focusing on things like "responsible innovation." Basically, he’s trying to find startups that actually fix the healthcare system rather than just making it more expensive.
But his biggest "retirement" project is OneTen.
🔗 Read more: How Do 401k Loans Work: What Most People Get Wrong
He co-founded this coalition with Ken Chenault (the former CEO of American Express) with a massive goal: to hire and promote one million Black Americans into family-sustaining jobs over ten years. The catch? They are focusing on people without four-year college degrees.
Frazier’s logic is simple: the "paper ceiling" of requiring a degree for every job is a major barrier to economic equity. By focusing on skills instead of diplomas, he’s trying to bridge a gap he saw firsthand growing up in North Philadelphia.
The Reality of His Legacy: It Wasn't Always Perfect
Look, no CEO has a perfect record. During his first five years at Merck, revenue actually went down. He had to lay off more than 10,000 employees to keep the R&D engine running. That’s a lot of families impacted. Some critics also point out that while Keytruda is a miracle for many, the company’s reliance on a single "megadrug" creates its own risks for the future.
And then there's the price of drugs. The pharmaceutical industry is constantly under fire for how much they charge for life-saving meds. Frazier has always defended Merck's pricing by pointing to the billions they sink into research that fails. It’s a debate that’s still raging in 2026, and there are no easy answers.
What You Can Learn from the Frazier Playbook
If you’re looking for a takeaway from Kenneth Frazier’s career, it’s not just "be brave." It’s about long-termism. In a world where everyone is obsessed with the next three months, Frazier obsessed over the next ten years.
Actionable Insights from Kenneth Frazier’s Career:
- Protect the Core: Identify the one thing your organization does better than anyone else (for Merck, it was R&D) and defend it at all costs, even when it’s unpopular.
- Skill Over Pedigree: If you're hiring, look at what people can actually do rather than just where they went to school. That’s how you find the talent everyone else is ignoring.
- The Enterprise First: Frazier famously stopped rewarding managers for how their specific divisions performed and started rewarding them based on how the whole company did. It broke down silos almost instantly.
- Values are Non-Negotiable: When your personal values clash with your professional associations, your values have to win. Every time.
Kenneth Frazier proved that you can be a "lawyer's lawyer" and still have the vision of a scientist. He showed that a CEO can have a moral compass that points somewhere other than just "up and to the right." Whether he’s advising startups at General Catalyst or pushing for job equity at OneTen, his influence on how we think about the "purpose" of a corporation is probably his biggest contribution to the world of business.
Check out the work being done at OneTen.org if you want to see how he's currently tackling the wealth gap. You can also follow his latest insights on healthcare transformation through the General Catalyst "Health Assurance" reports.