Executive Bios: Bill MacGowan

Bill MacGowan
Chief Human Resources Officer and Executive Vice President, People and Places
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

As Chief Human Resources Officer and Executive Vice President of People and Places, Bill MacGowan is focused on Sun's biggest asset, our workforce. His mission is to attract, develop and retain outstanding talent for Sun, and provide them with the knowledge and work environment to perform at their best.

MacGowan's People and Places organization is responsible for developing reward strategies that attract the best and brightest people, creating innovative learning and development opportunities for employees, providing flexible work arrangement through Sun's iWork program that allows us to draw on a broad, diverse talent pool, managing Sun's global facilities portfolio and identifying strategic locations targeted for workforce growth.

MacGowan was most recently the Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Sun Microsystems. In this role, he set the strategic direction for HR and organized the function to focus on several big pieces of work: advising Sun's executives on workforce and organizational issues, delivering HR services to Sun's global workforce, establishing strong total rewards packages for employees, and driving company-wide employee communications.

MacGowan joined Sun Microsystems in June 1998 to lead HR for Sun's Enterprise Services division. As his responsibilities at Sun grew, he served as Vice President of HR for Sun's Systems, Storage and Operations business groups, and later as Vice President of Human Resources, Global Centers of Expertise, in which Bill led all corporate HR functions.

MacGowan brings to the role 25 years of experience in leading Human Resources organizations. Previously, Bill was a Vice President of Human Resources for Quest Diagnostics and Corning Inc. Earlier in his career, he gained extensive HR experience, with a particular focus in compensation, at the global pharmaceuticals firm Allergan and at aerospace/defense contractor Northrop Grumman. In his personal time, MacGowan serves as a national trustee for the American Foundation for the Blind. Bill completed his BA degree in Political Science at Claremont McKenna College.