The Home Depotadds woman to board

The world’s largest home improvement retailer, The Home Depot, has appointed three new members to its board of directors, including one female, Karen Katen. The other new members are F. Duane Ackerman and Ari Bousbib. These appointments are a part of the company’s planned succession process to replace four existing board members, John L. Clendein, Claudio X. Gonzales, Milledge A. Hart III and Kenneth G. Langone, who are scheduled to retire from the board in May 2008.

Katen currently serves as chairman of the Pfizer Foundation, and recently retired as vice chairman of Pfizer Inc. and as president of Pfizer Human Health, the company’s principal operating group. Katen joined Pfizer in 1974 and has held numerous leadership roles within the organization until her retirement earlier this year. In 1993, she was named executive vice president of Pfizer U.S. Pharmaceuticals and she was promoted to president of that same business unit in 1995. During 2001, she was named president of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Group, the global pharmaceutical unit of Pfizer, and was elected executive vice president of Pfizer. She was elected vice chairman of Pfizer in 2005. With this recent announcement, The Home Depot’s board currently consists of 14 members, with 13 of them being outside directors.