Rosalind G. Brewer, also known as “Roz,” is an American businesswoman and as of March 2021, serving as the CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance. With her appointment in 2021, she is the only African American CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Brewer was the first African American woman to become CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Group President and COO of Starbucks, and CEO of Sam’s Club. Brewer has also held various leadership positions at Walmart and Kimberly-Clark.[1]
USA Today referred to her as "one of corporate America's most prominent women and black female executives."[2] Brewer has been ranked a "Highly Powerful Woman" by both Forbes and Fortune magazine.
Walgreens Boots Alliance on Thursday named Stefano Pessina chief executive officer, cementing his position at the helm of the international drugstore chain.
The 73-year-old Italian-born billionaire had been interim CEO since January, replacing Greg Wasson, who abruptly retired in December after the company completed its two-step acquisition of Alliance Boots, a Swiss-based pharmacy retailer. Pessina was executive chairman of Alliance Boots.
Walgreens investors have a lot of faith in Pessina's abilities to smoothly integrate the two companies and grow the combined entity amid a rapidly changing and consolidating U.S. health care industry. The early results of the newly merged Walgreens have been promising.
The company said Thursday that its earnings for the fiscal year ending Aug. 31 will be higher than it projected earlier this year after profits soared in the third quarter.
Shares of the Deerfield-based company rose 4.2 percent to $89.55. Before Thursday, the stock had gained 13 percent this year.
"In Walgreens Boots Alliance's initial six months as a newly combined company, Stefano has done an extraordinary job leading the new enterprise, focusing on our strategy while enhancing our financial performance," Executive Chairman James Skinner said in a statement. "In order to continue with this momentum and to recognize the progress that is already being made, the board concluded Stefano is the very best person to achieve our vision."
The Walgreen Company (Walgreens, or sometimes archaically Walgreen) is the largest[2] drug retailing chain in the United States. As of May 31, 2014, the company operated 8,217 stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It was founded in Chicago, Illinois, in 1901. The Walgreens headquarters office is in the Chicago suburb of Deerfield, Illinois.
In 2014, the company agreed to purchase the remaining 55% of Switzerland-based Alliance Boots that it did not already own to form a global business. Under the terms of the purchase, the two companies merged to form a new holding company, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., on December 31, 2014. Walgreens became a subsidiary of the new company, which retains its Deerfield headquarters and trades on the Nasdaq under the symbol WBA .[3]
