Name: Gavin Wood
New title: CEO, Coloplast
Previous title: Company group chairman, Johnson & Johnson MedTech EMEA
Coloplast has named former Johnson & Johnson executive Gavin Wood as CEO, filling a vacancy that was open for 10 months.
Former CEO Kristian Villumsen left the manufacturer of ostomy, continence, urology and wound care products in May 2025. At the time, Coloplast framed its decision to seek a new CEO as part of the start of a “new strategy period.” The company named its chair, Lars Rasmussen, as interim CEO and said it expected to appoint a new permanent leader within 12 months.
Wood will start as CEO on May 1, almost exactly 12 months after Villumsen left the company. Rasmussen will continue to lead Coloplast as interim CEO until the end of April.
The incoming CEO spent 20 years at Johnson & Johnson, culminating in a spell as company group chairman for the medtech business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Coloplast said the role put Wood at the head of a multibillion-dollar business with more than 7,000 employees across surgery, orthopedics, and cardiovascular and specialty solutions.
Wood previously led J&J’s Ethicon wound closure and healing team as worldwide president and worked as Mölnlycke’s executive vice president of commercial. Sweden’s Mölnlycke specializes in medical devices for wound care and surgical procedures.
Wood, a Canadian who currently lives in Switzerland, is moving to Denmark to take up the CEO role at Coloplast.
The company began as an ostomy specialist before expanding into continence, urology and wound care through a mix of acquisitions and in-house development. Coloplast expanded internationally, too, with a particular focus on China. Rasmussen said at a capital markets day last year that Coloplast invested “very, very heavily in China.” However, China is “definitely not a growth platform anymore,” Rasmussen added.
Last month, Coloplast named falling revenues in China as a factor behind the “soft” ostomy sales in the first quarter of its financial year. The company also named China as the only region where chronic care sales fell.
