J&J VP Zackarie Lemelle: technology mover and a mentor to many

Zackarie Lemelle is more than a mover in technology and management. He’s VP of IT corporate systems for Johnson & Johnson (J&J, New Brunswick, NJ), and he’s giving back by helping to move the careers of many mentees. He helps others advance, both personally and through organizations. One reason: he’s been given generous help himself throughout his thirty-year career.

Over the years Lemelle has had as many as fifteen protégés at a time. He currently has six, and keeps in touch with many others. "When you grow a mentor-mentee relationship to the point of advocacy and sponsorship, that’s when things begin to really happen for you," he says. "People can and will make a difference in your life, for good or not."

Strategic planning for J&J
J&J has more than 250 operating companies in fifty-seven countries and employs nearly 120,000 people. It’s arguably the world’s premier consumer health company and the largest and most diverse medical devices and diagnostics company, as well as one of the largest biologics and pharmaceuticals firms.

Lemelle’s responsibilities include leading all strategic IT and business process transformations for legal, global marketing, global communications, worldwide operations and compliance, worldwide procurement, the J&J Development Corp and J&J’s corporate office of science and technology. In fact, Lemelle’s office supports all of Johnson & Johnson’s corporate headquarters departments except human resources and finance.

It started with the Army
Back in 1972, when Lemelle graduated from high school, he entered Control Data Institute’s first computer operator school in Atlanta, GA. He was the only African American in the school. He graduated from the four-month training program second in his class, but when his white classmates got jobs, he didn’t. Coming from a military family, he signed up with the U.S. Army, hoping to land in a technical role.

"Even that was a task," he says. "They said, ‘You passed all our tests and finished officer candidate school, but you can’t go into computers.’"

But now his very first sponsors stepped in. His recruiter got him a recommendation letter from a key senior politician in the Georgia legislature. That opened the way; when Lemelle completed his basic training at Fort Knox, KY he was assigned to Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana for advanced training in computers. The military’s programs were first-rate, and "I took every class I could," he says.

Into programming
But Lemelle’s sergeant major wouldn’t approve him for the specific programming training he wanted. Another mentor, a colonel this time, stepped in, and Lemelle got permission to attend the class back at Fort Benjamin Harrison. He learned programming, eventually working in the Army’s Command and Control Division.

After programming training Lemelle was vetted for a top secret clearance and sent on to Washington, DC. He worked with the military personnel center, providing IT support for military leaders and the U.S. Congress.

Founding the mock promotion board
In Washington, the low promotion rate for enlisted personnel inspired Lemelle to organize the first "mock" promotion board. It gave all enlisted soldiers the opportunity to prepare and practice in front of senior leaders before facing an actual promotion board. The idea was a huge success and the promotion rate took a sharp upswing. Mock promotion boards are now a regular feature of the promotion process.

The Army also gave Lemelle his first experience in leading people. In 1976-‘77 he headed a group on assignment in Korea.

Rising with the civvies
Lemelle separated from the Army in 1979, entering the private sector through professional connections he’d forged. He looked for work where the challenges were great and his expertise would overshadow his lack of a four-year degree. At one IT company, now vanished, he spent four years as senior project director, program management officer and finally VP for the West Coast office.

He moved to consulting firm Systems " Computer Technology Corp (Malvern, PA) in 1984. On an assignment as CIO of Tuskegee University (Tuskegee, AL), he led the automation of the entire campus. The project included building fifteen new computing facilities, installing new academic and administrative hardware and software and implementing the campus’s first WAN with voice/data/video capability. In the first year of operation of this forward-looking technology, Tuskegee increased its new enrollments to the largest in its 110-year history.

Into pharma
For a while Lemelle changed his career direction from developing, delivering and leading technology programs to selling facilities management software and services. Then in 1991 he applied for the job of director of systems and programming at McNeil Pharmaceutical (Spring House, PA), one of the J&J family of companies. After more than twenty interviews over a four-month period and the intervention of another helpful sponsor, he got the job. Now he was working for a white, woman IT leader. "The battles are similar for women and African Americans," he says.

At Lemelle’s request, his new boss helped him find four likely mentors: a white woman, a white man, an African American woman and an African American man.

"I wanted to make sure I got a well-rounded perspective of the company and the corporate culture, since I hadn’t experienced that before," he says. "I also wanted to understand the unwritten rules of the game from many perspectives."

He also cultivated other mentors along the way. "Ultimately, they became advocates for me and were responsible for making opportunities available," he says. "They helped me continue to grow at J&J."

On to CIO
Lemelle was leading systems and programming when McNeil Pharmaceutical merged with Ortho Pharmaceutical (Raritan, NJ), another J&J company, in 1993. A year after the merger he moved from IT to HR and worked as the leader of business re-engineering for the merged company. In 1998 he went back to IT and led the pharmaceutical salesforce automation segment of a customer relationship management project that served more than 6,500 pharmaceutical reps. In 1999 he became CIO for the company and a member of its management board.

More opportunities
Lemelle’s CIO experience led to the 2003 offer of a global CIO position at Ethicon, Inc (Somerville, NJ), a J&J medical devices company. That job included membership on the company’s global management board, a welcome opportunity to increase his perspective. And in 2007 he moved into his current job as VP of IT corporate systems.

Over the course of his career, Lemelle says, "I’ve had an opportunity to touch multiple businesses in many capacities."

Progressing with AALC
Back in 1998, Lemelle and a J&J colleague founded the company’s African American Leadership Council (AALC). They envisioned an organization that would help black voices be heard and concerns addressed at J&J. The organization would also help African American employees prepare for opportunities at J&J, and create community within the company.

The AALC holds a day-long meeting every two years that features senior J&J leadership. Last year’s meeting drew in more than 650 people, including white men and women, Hispanics, Asians and GLBT employees.

"It’s all about inclusion," Lemelle says. "We encourage everyone to participate. It’s a phenomenal event focused on business growth and people development."

AALC has also joined with J&J’s first employee group, Helping Our Neighbors with Our Resources (HONOR), a community-based organization more than twenty years old. HONOR, which Lemelle now co-chairs, sponsors a big event for the Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday celebration, a statewide track meet and a variety of other events.

Leading ITSMF
In 2004 Lemelle joined the Information Technology Senior Management Forum (ITSMF, itsmfonline.org), which fosters the development of top executive talent among African American IT pros. He began as a member of the strategy team, and was soon involved with the group’s employee development program as a mentor. It was a very natural step for him, given all his previous mentoring experience. He became national chair of the organization in 2007.

ITSMF, a nonprofit member organization, was formed in 1996. It provides a supportive network to enhance the leadership skills of the IT executives who make up its membership. Members are senior-level IT executives: CIOs, SVPs, presidents, VPs and directors. More than 60 percent are from Fortune 500 companies; the rest represent established technology businesses and educational institutions.

The balanced life
Along the way, Zack Lemelle and his wife Loren have raised seven kids in their combined family, two of them still at home. There are four grandchildren. Lemelle spent ten years as a Little League baseball umpire and ten years as a kids’ football referee.

"I don’t know how I was able to balance my personal life and my work life, but somehow it all worked out," Lemelle says. "I go by the grace of God, and the rest takes care of itself."

D/C

Kate Colborn and Christine Willard Heinrichs