Two months ago, the health care giant formed a new organizational creature - an Office of Strategy and Growth. The regal-sounding unit is supposed to function as something of a think tank, venture capital firm and business incubator rolled into one. Given that J&J has always prided itself on running numerous decentralized businesses, the new office is an effort to view them as one large interlocking puzzle in hopes of figuring out where money should be spent next.

Running this new project is Nick Valeriani, the son of a union carpenter and one of the first members of his family to earn a college degree. He got his start at the J&J subsidiary Ethicon in 1978, and steadily worked his way through the ranks, mostly in the medical devices and diagnostics business. Valeriani spoke with The Star-Ledger of New Jersey (which owns Pharmalot) about his new task…

SL: How much of the job is identifying new swaths of business for J&J to fill, and how much is targeting specific companies to bring into the fold?
Valeriani: It’s really both. If you look at the capabilities of Johnson & Johnson, then consider the future trends in health care - what’s going to happen in the world in the next 10, 20, 30 years - at the intersection of those two, that’s where the magic will happen. That’s where we’ll be able to create new businesses for Johnson & Johnson. The other thing we’ll be able to do is look at the capabilities of J&J through a different lens than someone who leads (the company’s) consumer (business), and the person who leads pharma and the person who leads the medical device and diagnostic business. What we’re able to do is step back and look at it as a business in service of the world’s population and its health care.

SL: Do you have a personal goal for growth at J&J, say X amount over X years?
Valeriani: The impact and effect of this office is not going to be felt in the next six months. I lived the last 30 years at Johnson & Johnson growing businesses, creating businesses, doing the best I could to drive shareholder value. Our bias will be to create new businesses that drive growth for the corporation. This is not an academic exercise. This is not a research paper. Even at this point, I’d hesitate to say what my personal aspiration would be. But it’s to drive growth.

SL: What is your first order of business?
Valeriani: We obviously want look at our investment portfolio, make sure we’re making the right investments internally and externally. The one thing I do want to do, and haven’t determined how I’ll accomplish this, but this idea of taking a step back to do some fundamental and foundational work in understanding and trying to characterize the world we’re heading into…This idea of what are going to be the big important unmet needs that will need to be addressed, and how does J&J meet and satisfy those needs. We figure that out, I think we create billions of dollars of opportunity for the corporation.