Agilent Technologies has elected Dow R. Wilson as chair of its board of directors, the Santa Clara, California, company said in an announcement issued on September 8, 2026. The appointment took effect on September 4, 2026, and was disclosed alongside a wider refresh of the board.
Wilson has served on the Agilent board since 2018 and currently chairs its Audit and Finance Committee. The company said his leadership experience, governance expertise and knowledge of the business would support a seamless transition and continued strong oversight of Agilent's long term strategy. The chair passes from Koh Boon Hwee, who retired from the board on the same date after more than two decades as a director. Padraig McDonnell, Agilent's president and chief executive, thanked him for his judgment, his global perspective and the support he gave during McDonnell's own move into the chief executive role.
Wilson arrived on the Agilent board as a serving chief executive. He led Varian Medical Systems, the Palo Alto based cancer treatment device and software company, from 2012, having previously been its chief operating officer and executive vice president and, before that, president of its Oncology Systems business. He retired from the Varian chief executive role in 2021, the year Siemens Healthineers completed its acquisition of the company.
Before Varian, Wilson spent 19 years at GE Healthcare, a career that ended with his appointment as chief executive of that group's healthcare information technology unit. That combination of large company healthcare operating experience and public company board service is what Agilent has now placed at the head of its boardroom.
Agilent has kept the roles of chair and chief executive separate, so Wilson will work alongside McDonnell rather than run the company. The chair sets the agenda for the board, leads its oversight of management and acts as the principal link between directors and shareholders on governance questions. Wilson also continues to chair the Audit and Finance Committee, which gives him direct sight of the financial controls and capital allocation decisions that sit behind any strategy the board is asked to approve.
The commercial stakes are substantial. Agilent generated revenue of $6.95 billion in fiscal year 2025 and employs approximately 18,000 people worldwide, supplying instruments, software, services and expertise across analytical and clinical laboratory markets. A chair with an operating record in medical technology gives management a counterpart on questions of portfolio direction, acquisitions and healthcare market exposure, at a company that has been extending from its analytical instrument roots further into clinical and diagnostic work.
The same announcement brought Glenn Boehnlein onto the Agilent board, also effective September 4, 2026. Boehnlein spent 22 years at Stryker Corporation and served as its vice president and chief financial officer from 2016 until he retired from that role in 2025. McDonnell said Boehnlein's financial leadership experience, knowledge of the medical technology sector and public company board experience would strengthen the range of expertise represented on the board.
Taken together, the two changes weight Agilent's board leadership toward directors with medical technology operating and financial backgrounds, as the company continues to serve both its traditional analytical instrument customers and the clinical and diagnostic laboratories it has moved into.
