Walgreens chooses Roz Brewer to be its CEO

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Brewer is scheduled to start March 15, Walgreens said Tuesday. She is currently the Chief Operating Officer at Starbucks and will remain in that role until the end of February. The coffee company announced its departure on Tuesday.

“I am delighted to work alongside the ensemble [Walgreens Boots Alliance] “Brewer said in a statement.” This is especially true today as the company plays a crucial role in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brewer will succeed Stefano Pessina, who became CEO of Walgreens in 2015. The drugstore chain announced its decision to resign in July.

Roz Brewer speaks at the annual meeting of shareholders in Seattle, Washington, March 20, 2019.

“It’s really great to see her in this role,” said Lorraine Hariton, president and CEO of Catalyst, a non-profit research group that tracks the number of women in leadership roles in large companies.

Only one other black woman, former Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, has ever served as the general manager of a Fortune 500 company, Hariton said.

“We’re definitely accelerating the number of female CEOs, period, in the Fortune 500,” said Hariton. But “when it comes to black women, this is a place that is lagging behind,” she said. “We still have to work to really have a pipeline for women of color.”

Prior to becoming COO at Starbucks in 2017, Brewer was President and CEO of Sam’s Club. In this role, she was both the first woman and the first African American to lead a Walmart division.
She is currently a director of Amazon (AMZN) and Starbucks (SBUX), but she will be stepping down from the Starbucks board in February. She will join the Walgreens (WBA) board of directors when she becomes CEO. Previously, she was a director of Lockheed Martin and Molson Coors.

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