By Sharon Terlep, Heather Haddon and Sarah Nassauer
When Rosalind Brewer, then the CEO of Sam's Club, called out the
lack of diversity in American corporations in a 2015 interview, she
received death threats and a torrent of criticism.
Five years later, Ms. Brewer, now Starbucks Corp.'s No. 2
executive, is set to become the only Black woman to lead a Fortune
500 company as she takes over as chief executive of Walgreens Boots
Alliance Inc. amid a national debate about systemic racism.
Walgreens, the largest U.S. drugstore chain by sales, said
Tuesday that Ms. Brewer, who goes by Roz, will succeed Stefano
Pessina, who will stay on the company's board and serve as its
executive chairman.
Mr. Pessina said Ms. Brewer, 58, became a CEO candidate through
a search run by an outside firm, and that he and Ms. Brewer talked
one-on-one several times in recent weeks.
"What I see in her is leadership," said Mr. Pessina, who has run
Walgreens since mid-2015. "Initially you have to trust your gut
feeling and my gut feeling was good. I liked her, otherwise we
probably wouldn't be here today."
Ms. Brewer takes over at a pivotal time for Walgreens. Retail
drugstores have been major providers of coronavirus testing and are
set to take an even bigger role in vaccinating the American public.
A successful vaccination program would boost Walgreens as it
struggles to turn itself around in the face of competition from
online retailers, including Amazon.com Inc.
Mr. Pessina said Ms. Brewer's experience managing Starbucks
through the coronavirus pandemic and growing the company's digital
presence through its mobile-ordering app equip her to run the
pharmacy chain, along with her time running Sam's Club, which also
operates pharmacies.
Ms. Brewer was the first woman and is still the only Black
executive to ever hold a CEO role at Walmart, Sam's Club's parent.
She has said that during her time at the Bentonville, Ark.-based
retailer she sometimes faced criticism for giving priority to
diversity within the company.
In a December 2015 interview on CNN, Ms. Brewer described a
meeting with a supplier. "The entire other side of the table was
all Caucasian males, " she said. "That was interesting."
Ms. Brewer said she demanded a commitment to diverse hiring on
her team and used her platform to nudge Sam's Club suppliers to do
the same.
The comments spurred a stream of critical social media posts and
letters to Walmart.
"I received death threats. My children's lives were threatened.
My resignation was called for by people that didn't know me," Ms.
Brewer said in a 2018 commencement address to Spelman College, her
alma mater. "And here's what I'd said that triggered such strong
emotions. I said, 'Diversity makes good business sense.' How dare
I?"
Soon after the interview Walmart CEO Doug McMillon issued a
statement: "Roz was simply trying to reiterate that we believe
diverse and inclusive teams make for a stronger business."
Ms. Brewer, a native of Detroit whose parents both worked for
General Motors Co., belonged to the first generation in her family
to attend college. She studied organic chemistry at Spelman and
spent years as a scientist at Kimberly-Clark Corp. before moving
into management. She took business and management courses at the
University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School but doesn't hold an
MBA.
"In many cases I've had to teach myself a lot of things," said
Ms. Brewer in a May interview with retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal
and author Chris Fussell of the McChrystal Group consulting
firm.
She has learned to rely on mentors, including former PepsiCo
Inc. CEO Indra Nooyi and ex-Walmart U.S. Chief Bill Simon.
Ms. Brewer has "this innate ability to be likable," Mr. Simon
said in an interview. "She uses her approachability to disarm
people," and take on big challenges or difficult conversations
directly, said Mr. Simon, who was Ms. Brewer's boss during some of
her time at Walmart.
Ms. Brewer didn't respond to requests for comment for this
article.
At Starbucks, Ms. Brewer oversaw the company's beverage
development and push into cold coffee, a trend competitors have
since adopted given increasing sales. Investors credit Ms. Brewer
with making its store operations more efficient.
Ms. Brewer said she was proud of the difficult decisions
Starbucks took during the pandemic, including closing hundreds of
North American stores and paying retail workers early on in the
crisis even if they didn't work.
The pandemic forced Ms. Brewer to reassess her priorities, she
said. With an adult son back in the house and a teenage daughter at
home, Ms. Brewer said she further focused on her family. She worked
out more, tried to get sleep, and has been meditating daily.
"We'll be a different society after this is over," she said
about the pandemic. "You have to find the good in every
crisis."
Ms. Brewer was seen by many investors as a possible future CEO
at Starbucks. She played a prominent role in speaking to investors,
its board and the company's retail employees. After the pandemic
hit, Ms. Brewer said she would stop into Starbucks stores and speak
to retail employees about what was on their minds beyond their
jobs.
"It's a relief and it starts relationship building. That's when
inclusion happens," Ms. Brewer said in an interview with The Wall
Street Journal in the fall about its diversity commitments and
training.
When she left Walmart in 2017 after five years running Sam's
Club, Ms. Brewer signed an exit agreement that prohibited her from
working for another global retail company with revenue of more than
$5 billion for two years, according to a financial filing, a clause
typical of Walmart executive employment contracts.
The week her noncompete ended in 2019, Ms. Brewer joined the
board of Amazon, Walmart's biggest rival.
--Dana Mattioli contributed to this article.
Write to Sharon Terlep at sharon.terlep@wsj.com, Heather Haddon
at heather.haddon@wsj.com and Sarah Nassauer at
sarah.nassauer@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 27, 2021 13:47 ET (18:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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