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Rosalind Brewer, COO of Starbucks, continues to chart new leads in American businesses.
At the end of February, Brewer, who is the coffee company’s first Black and first female COO, will step down to take over as CEO of drugstore chain Walgreens. In this new role, she will be the only black woman to currently serve as the CEO of the Fortune 500 and the third black woman to run a Fortune 500 company in history. Ursula Burns, who served as CEO of Xerox between 2009 and 2016, was first, and Mary Winston, who served as interim CEO of Bed Bath & Beyond in 2019, was second.
Prior to joining Starbucks in 2017, Brewer spent five years as CEO of Sam’s Club, which is owned by Walmart. As a longtime executive in corporate America, she has spoken openly about the biases and challenges she faces as one of the very few black women in the C-suite.
Starbucks COO and Group President Rosalind “Roz” Brewer speaks at the annual meeting of shareholders in Seattle, Washington on March 20, 2019.
Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images
“When you’re a black woman you get a lot wrong,” she said during a 2018 speech at her alma mater Spelman College, which is an all-female HBCU. “You are wrong as someone who couldn’t in fact be in this high level position. Sometimes you are mistaken for a kitchen helper. Sometimes people assume you’re in the wrong place, and all I can think of in my head is, you are in the wrong place. ‘”
During the speech, Brewer recalled the time she was invited to an exclusive CEO roundtable in New York City while serving as CEO of Sam’s Club. During the reception, she said, she met a fellow CEO and introduced herself the same way the other men in the room had introduced themselves, “Roz Brewer from Sam’s Club.” After exchanging introductions, she said her fellow CEO asked her what she does at the company and asked if she leads marketing. Intrigued by the question as the event invite indicated it was a CEO roundtable, Brewer says she responded by saying, “No, this is part of my organization.”
After the man continued the conversation by asking if she worked in merchandising, Brewer said she gave her fellow CEO a “sidelong glance” as she was actually serving as the keynote address at the store. ‘event. “I enjoyed the look on her face when my bio was read,” she said. “It was a good day.”
Brewer, who was ranked 48th on the Forbes 2020 Power Women list, explained that the CEO roundtable was one of many incidents in which she encountered prejudice inside and outside of work. “If there is one place where the bias doesn’t exist, I haven’t found it,” she said.
Recognizing that many women experience gender bias and discrimination in the workplace, Brewer said her biggest message to women in business is to ‘stand firm’ and know that ‘your voice matters’.
“You will sometimes be wrong, and there are ways to clean up your mistakes,” she told TV host Shaun Robinson in a Facebook interview in December 2020. “First of all, admit you made the mistake. But keep using your voice.
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Check-out:
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