There’s an old political adage that generals and U.S. senators don’t make good presidents. Both are in the habit of barking orders to obedient subordinants, and they don’t appreciate or use the art of persuasion or compromise.

Bearing that thought in mind, it’s noteworthy that President Obama, a former senator himself, has gone outside the Pentagon to find a business executive to lead the scandal-worn Veterans Affairs Department.

Seeking to turn around a troubled agency, Obama reportedly has chosen former Procter & Gamble executive Robert McDonald as secretary of Veterans Affairs. If confirmed by the Senate, the 61-year-old McDonald, who spent 33 years at P&G, would succeed Eric Shinseki, the retired four-star general who resigned in May as the scope of the appointment delays and other issues at veterans’ hospitals became apparent.

McDonald, a U.S. Military Academy graduate, engineer and former captain in the U.S. Army’s rugged 82nd Airborne Division, has unique talents and experience that equip him for the job of turning around the far-flung VA and kick-start its balky, entrenched and corruption-riddled operations.

Sloan Gibson, acting VA secretary, and Obama advisers Rob Nabors delivered a scathing report to the president on Friday, citing “significant and chronic system failures” in the Veterans Affairs Department and portrayed the VA as a struggling agency battling a corrosive culture of distrust, lacking in resources and ill-prepared to deal with an influx of new and older veterans with a range of medical and mental health care needs.

McDonald’s foremost task will be to pick up the remnants of ongoing investigations at 77 VA facilities and mold an ailing operations culture into a winning team. There’s no knowing, at this point, to what extent he will need to purge existing VA staff to transform it — or, for that matter, how much turnover is expected by the president or the Senate, which must approve his nomination.

Procter & Gamble is legendary for fostering a corporate network that in many ways mirrors the best traits of the U.S. military. The Cincinnati-based multinational corporation emphasizes promotion from within, extensive training for managers and executives, and community service.

There’s also an expectation of profits, and that’s where McDonald’s performance disappointed some P&G shareholders. McDonald resigned abruptly from P&G in May 2013 amid pressure from investors concerned that he was not doing enough to boost the company’s performance. He said at the time of his retirement that he believed constant speculation about his job status had become too much of a distraction to the company.

It’s also noteworthy that McDonald was a prominent supporter of Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election; he also has contributed to GOP House Speaker John Boehner, and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman. Republicans are not expected to hold up McDonald’s appointment in the Senate.

All told, it’s a good sign that Obama looked outside the VA, outside the military and outside his own political party for a competent leader capable of pulling the VA out of its deplorable state.

Reviving the VA will be a monumental task, but McDonald might be just the person to pull it off.