Is Amy Klobuchar connected to big pharma? Klobuchar is not a very common name, is it?

Mike Klobuchar

Oct 12, 2016

By Michael Christel

Big-Picture Thinker

Mike Klobuchar, Vice President, Business and Financial Planning, Merck & Co.

For Mike Klobuchar, seemingly at the launch point of a career rise in chemical engineering, a funny thing happened on the way to Princeton University to seek his PhD. He received a job offer from big pharma giant Merck & Co. Confronted with the attractive but difficult choice, he decided to break from the linear educational path common in his field of study—and rather than commit to another five years of schooling, put his skills to the fire.

That was 1998. Almost 20 years later, Klobuchar and the company he joined out of college and has stayed with since—racing on a function-spanning journey from R&D and manufacturing to chief of staff for Merck CEO Ken Frazier and now steering finance transformation and cross-divisional strategy—are happy he went off script.

“I wanted to test myself. I thought I was pretty good, but didn’t know how good,” says Klobuchar, a Purdue University grad at the time, with a B.S. in chemical engineering.

Sauce: http://www.pharmexec.com/mike-klobuchar