Barack Obama has nominated former Procter & Gamble executive Robert McDonald as his next secretary of veterans affairs, banking on the former CEO’s corporate experience to shake up the beleaguered department.

“We’ve got to regain the trust of our veterans with a VA that is more effective, more efficient and that truly puts veterans first,” Obama said on Monday afternoon. “Bob’s the man to get this done.”



McDonald, 61, will succeed Eric Shinseki, who resigned from his post on 30 May following revelations about failures within the department, including a large-scale cover-up of backlogged waiting lists for one of the nation’s largest integrated health systems.



“When it comes to delivering timely, quality healthcare, we have to do better,” Obama said. He urged the Senate to confirm McDonald as soon as possible to hasten the transformation of the department.



A report by one of Obama’s top advisers, Rob Nabors, showed that there are “significant and chronic system failures" in the VA, which has nearly nine million veterans enrolled for care. The FBI has also opened a criminal investigation into the agency.



Mcdonald said he is prepared to lead if confirmed by the Senate and that it is his goal “to improve the lives of our country’s veterans and help change the way the department of veterans affairs does business”.

McDonald graduated from West Point military academy in the top 2% of his class and served in the US army for five years, though his military experience is considerably shorter than former secretaries of veterans affairs.

Following his service, he began work at Procter & Gamble in 1980 and took the reins as CEO from 2009 to 2013. He left the company having failed to turn around its flagging profits in the midst of the Great Recession, though analysts say his skills at improving employee morale, encouraging strong leadership and creating simpler management systems could be a remedy for the veterans affairs past failings in those areas.

"This is definitely a surprising pick. McDonald is not a name that was on anyone's radar over the last few weeks,” said Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the advocacy group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).

“His branding background may prove helpful, because there are few organizations in America with a worse reputation with its customers than the VA right now. He's been away from the military for quite a while, and will have to move quickly to show he is committed to and understands the post-9/11 generation of veterans.”



House speaker John Boehner, to whom McDonald made a $1,000 donation to last year, said in a statement that the the newly appointed secretary is: “a good man, a veteran and a strong leader with decades of experience in the private sector”, who is “the kind of person who is capable of implementing the kind of dramatic systemic change that is badly needed and long overdue at the VA”.

Sloan D Gibson, former deputy undersecretary for veterans affairs, will remain the acting head of the department pending McDonald’s confirmation. Obama chided congress during the announcement, saying that he is waiting for its approval on several other personnel appointments.