The Crisis Preventer
From the FTC to P&G, Deborah Platt Majoras keeps consumers in mind
BY KATHRYN DELONG
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROSS VAN PELT
When Deborah Platt Majoras was chair
of the Federal Trade Commission, her
wrangles with Congress over the cost of
gasoline gave insomniacs something to
watch on TV.
“Friends around the country would
email me and say, ‘Hey, I haven’t seen you
in years, but the other night I turned on
C-SPAN at 2 o’clock in the morning, and
there you were, getting yelled at about
gasoline prices,’” Majoras says.
Majoras cheerfully reflects on the criticism
that went along with being a high-profile
government official. She had come to terms
with it even before joining the FTC in 2004,
after three years at the U.S. Department of
Justice. “People will attack the decisions you
make,” she says. “And so it’s just important
to be able to say, ‘I did the best I could,’ and
then you have to live with it.”
Her critics did her a favor. Majoras’
government service taught her a lesson
that has served her in every role since. “If
there’s one thing that all of my experience
in government gave me, it was learning
how important it is to stick to your
principles,” she says. “If you don’t have
some principles and a backbone to stick to
them, you’re lost. You’re absolutely lost.”
After the trials of working for the
government, her position as chief legal
officer and secretary at Procter & Gamble
Co. offers something of a respite. She
joined the multibillion-dollar corporation
in 2008 and says, “I’m very happy to be
preventing crises.” She adds that crises do
occur on occasion—that is part of life in the
business world, after all—but she gladly
takes on the challenge.
FROM THE COMPANY’S CORPORATE
headquarters in Cincinnati, Majoras runs
a department of 350 lawyers around the
globe who deal with the full range of legal
issues, including antitrust and advertising
matters, mergers and acquisitions,
securities law, corporate governance
and compliance, as well as intellectual
property disputes.
“People often associate heavy
innovation, and therefore intellectual
property protection, more with technology
companies,” she says. “In fact, innovation
is absolutely the lifeblood of P&G. We win
awards every year for our strong innovation
program, which is the strongest in the
consumer goods industry.”
With a workforce of 127,000 and business
taking place in more than 180 countries,
the company produces such trusted brands
as Tide, Pampers and Gillette. “P&G aims
to do the right thing in a complicated
world,” says Timothy Hester, who has seen
its ethical business practices firsthand. His
firm, Covington & Burling, has represented
the company for 50 years. Majoras, he says,
“takes that mission very seriously.”
That makes her a good fit for P&G, and
it’s one of the reasons she succeeded
while at the FTC. “She was a terrific
chairman,” says the current head of the
agency, Jon Leibowitz, who served as a
commissioner during Majoras’ tenure.
“The great thing about the FTC is you get
to go after the bad guys. [It’s all about]
truth, justice and the American way,” he
says. “Our staff just doesn’t wear capes.”
Majoras’ nemesis at the FTC was the
rising price of gas, the bane of today’s
consumers as well. “There were several
members of Congress who really wanted
me to sue the oil companies for antitrust
violations,” she says. “The problem with
that was we didn’t find any, so I wasn’t
going to bring a lawsuit against companies
if I didn’t believe they had violated the law.
SUPER LAW YERS / BUSINESS EDITION 2011
189
