(FORTUNE Magazine) – YOU'D THINK that I can't hold a job,'' says Ross Johnson. ''I've had about five titles in ten years. I have no real talents -- no functional talents, that is.'' For a no-talent executive, Johnson, 55, is doing just fine. On January 1 he becomes chief executive officer at RJR/Nabisco, the second-biggest consumer products company in the U.S. (after Procter & Gamble), a position he won a scant year and a half after giving up the No. 1 spot at Nabisco when it was acquired by Reynolds. Johnson is no ordinary job-hopper. As head of Standard Brands he performed a similar high-level pirouette into the C.E.O.'s chair three years after he brought that company into a stock-swap merger with Nabisco to form Nabisco Brands in 1981. Though he has not attracted a lot of media attention, Johnson has considerable flair. A serious weekend golfer (10 handicap), he got Nabisco Brands to sponsor the Dinah Shore golf tournament and signed up sports luminaries such as Frank Gifford, Jack Nicklaus, and Bobby Orr to form Team Nabisco, a promotional group. The company doesn't try to measure how many packages of Oreo cookies such efforts sell, but Nabisco's most important customers -- execs of the major grocery chains -- love hobnobbing with their athlete heroes. So does Ross. Several of his big-name sports pals turned up recently at a charity dinner he organized. The take: $1.1 million to benefit the New York area Boys Clubs. Johnson's panache extends to matters sartorial. A spiffy dresser, he stepped under the same klieg lights as Bob Hope, Ted Turner, and Mario Andretti in a series of print ads for an Oleg Cassini line of clothing aptly called the Competitors' Collection. Don't be deceived: Behind the silk pocket puff lurks a consummate numbers man. One former colleague suggests that Johnson can glean more information from a balance sheet in an hour than many executives would in a day. That financial bent in part accounts for Johnson's key role in swinging the Standard Brands-Nabisco merger, and later in winning for shareholders a 25% premium over market price in the sale of Nabisco. Johnson is an old hand too at adding and subtracting businesses on a smaller scale. After Standard Brands and Nabisco merged, the new company quickly got out of high-fructose sweeteners, a product that Standard had developed but failed to commercialize successfully before it was overrun by competing look- alikes. Nabisco Brands then started acquiring businesses more oriented toward consumers, such as Life Savers. Shortly after Nabisco became part of RJR, Johnson and C.E.O. Tylee Wilson sold off the company's frozen foods business, Sunkist Soft Drinks, Canada Dry, and the Kentucky Fried Chicken operation. Although Johnson no longer has to crunch numbers himself, he is said to be demanding of subordinates who do. ''You don't take five minutes of his time when 30 seconds is enough,'' says a company executive. He sometimes abruptly ends discussions that seem to be yielding nothing more than what Johnson calls a BGO -- a ''blinding glimpse of the obvious.'' Says one colleague: ''You don't want to let him down.'' A former associate puts it more bluntly: ''He can be a pretty brutal operator. If some heads need to roll, he'll start sharpening the sword.'' Johnson may have succeeded best in managing his own career. He seems to know when to hold back a bit and when to move quickly to checkmate. Johnson hadn't been president of Standard Brands for long when the board's dissatisfaction with then C.E.O. Henry Weigl gave Johnson his opening. ''Ross had all his ducks lined up,'' recalls a former associate. ''There was a daylong board meeting, and when it was over, the other guy was out and Ross was C.E.O.'' When Standard Brands and Nabisco joined up in a merger of equals, it was natural for Johnson to take the second spot: The Nabisco chief was nine years older and more experienced. No other con-tenders for the top spot ever emerged, and Johnson easily took over after three years. His recent move into the corner office at RJR/Nabisco was more dramatic. It was Reynolds that acquired Nabisco, not vice versa, though it was understood at the time of the deal that Ross would get the top job someday. Someday came soon. The company's official line is that C.E.O. Wilson, the same age as Johnson, decided to retire early. Yet Johnson observers suggest Ross wanted the job sooner rather than later and got his way. Mere speculation? More likely, considering Johnson's record, it's just a BGO.