Rosalind Brewer, Starbucks‘ operating chief, has now accepted a job as Walgreens Boots Alliance‘s chief executive, according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
She will be the first black woman to lead a Fortune 500 company.
Brewer is set to replace Stefano Pessina, who said last year he’d step down once the company found a new leader. Pessina is one of Walgreens’ biggest lone investors and will remain on the board.
Brewer will be leaving both Starbucks as a company and its board at the end of February, according to Starbucks. She’ll also step down from the board of Amazon as of Feb. 16, WSJ writes.
Brewer was also CEO of Walmart’s Sam’s Club division for five years prior to working with Starbucks.
At Starbucks, Brewer was known for helping shift the company to a focus on to-go operations during the pandemic, WSJ writes. She also worked on diversifying the company’s leadership, as the company announced last year that it would tie executive compensation with increasing minority representation and mandated anti-bias training among company leaders.
As for Amazon, Brewer joined the company’s board, where she also pressured the eCommerce giant to add more diversity to its lineup.
According to Pessina, Brewer will be a good choice because of her retail background and experience in the digital world.
Earlier this month, Walgreens, which is still America’s biggest drug store chain, reported $27.2 billion in sales in Q1 2021. That’s a 3.9 percent rise from a year earlier, PYMNTS writes.
Sales in comparable stores rose 3.7 percent from a year earlier, with a 5 percent boost in the comparable pharmacy sales and a 0.4 percent boost for comparable retail sales.
Prescriptions were on the rise as well, with a 2.7 percent spike in prescriptions filled compared to last year. The company said there had been a 1.1 percent rise in the total prescriptions filed this quarter compared to the same time last year.
We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with innovators and disruptors.
Learn More