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OUR CHAIRMAN AND
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Micheal O.
Johnson
Since Johnson joined Herbalife in April 2003,
the company strengthened product development by
establishing Nutrition and Scientific Advisory Boards
and funding the creation of the Mark Hughes Cellular and
Molecular Nutrition Laboratory at UCLA.
Under his
direction, the company has had a “mega” product launch
each year including Niteworks™ for overall
cardiovascular wellness in 2003; the ShapeWorks™
weight-management program and Garden 7™, essential fruit
and vegetable phytonutrients in convenient daily packs
in 2004; vitamin-based skin-care line NouriFusion™ and
Liftoff™, the first effervescent energy drink in
dissolvable tablet form, in 2005; and immunity booster
Best Defense®, and Skin Activator® anti-aging line in
2006.On the financial side, Johnson engineered a
recapitalization of the company, leading a public debt
offering that reduced the LBO debt and returned $380
million to existing shareholders. In December
2004, he led the company’s initial public offering and
listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:HLF).
The IPO improved Herbalife’s capital structure
replacing $270 million of higher yield fixed debt with
$200 million of lower yield variable debt. The
company had record retail sales of $3 billion in
2006.Johnson spent 17 years with The Walt Disney
Company. While leading Buena Vista Home Entertainment,
he restructured the way the video rental industry
operated by shifting to a revenue-sharing business
model, introduced the Disney “sell-thru” business
globally, and engineered the master plan for expansion
of the company’s worldwide video presence by
establishing Disney subsidiaries in Europe, Asia,
Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.
As president of
Walt Disney International, Johnson devised and launched
“Disney I”, a subscription entertainment service with
NTT DoCoMo in Japan that serves in excess of three
million subscribers. Before assuming his role at Disney,
Johnson served as publisher of Audio Times magazine and
was a sales and marketing executive with Warner Amex
Satellite Entertainment Company directing activities for
MTV, Nickelodeon and The Movie Channel on the west
coast. |