Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) this week appointed veteran business chief executive Rosalind (Roz) Brewer as WBA’s chief executive officer effective March 15. The appointment will make Brewer the sole Black female CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
Brewer most recently served as chief operating officer of Starbucks and is the former president and CEO of Sam’s Club, retailer Walmart’s members-only warehouse store. “She made history by becoming the first woman and first African American to lead a Walmart division,” WBA said in a Jan. 26 news release announcing her appointment.
AllianceRx Walgreens Prime, Walgreens’ specialty and home delivery pharmacy division, is a 340B Report sponsor.
There were only five Black CEOs on the Fortune 500 list for 2020, including Kenneth Frazier of drug manufacturer Merck. The only other Black woman to lead a Fortune 500 company was Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, from 2009 to 2016.
A number of Black men and women lead major U.S. health systems, including Lloyd Dean of CommonSpirit Health, Audrey Gregory of Detroit Medical Center, Wright Lassiter III of Henry Ford Health System, Dr. Philip Ozuah of Montefiore Medicine, Michael Ugwueke of Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, and Eugene Woods of Atrium Health.
