Walgreens names Starbucks Executive Roz Brewer as CEO

Shares of Walgreens, which have a market value of about $ 43 billion, were up 7.4% after hours after The Wall Street Journal reported en route.

Starbucks said Tuesday that Ms. Brewer was leaving in late February for a new position at another publicly traded company. Before joining the coffeehouse chain, Ms. Brewer was CEO of Walmart Inc.’s

Sam’s Club Division for five years.

Ms. Brewer, 58, has served as Chief Operating Officer and member of the Starbucks Board of Directors since 2017. She helped Starbucks focus on to-go operations during the pandemic and has worked to diversify the company’s leadership. Starbucks said last fall that it would link executive pay with greater minority representation in the workforce, and made antibias training mandatory for business leaders.

In 2019, Ms. Brewer joined the board of Amazon.com Inc.

under pressure on the company to add more diversity to the board. Amazon is expanding into healthcare and is increasingly a competitor to companies such as Walgreens and CVS. In 2018, Amazon bought the online pharmacy PillPack for $ 1 billion.

Walgreens, the largest US drugstore chain, is struggling to turn itself around, an effort complicated by the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Pessina, an Italian billionaire, took over five years ago after the merger of Walgreens and European pharmacy chain Alliance Boots.

True to rival CVS Health Corp.

has built itself into a healthcare colossus through acquisitions of pharmacy insurer Caremark in 2006 and insurer Aetna Inc., Walgreens stepped away from total acquisitions after failed attempts to acquire insurer Humana Inc.

and pharmacy rival Rite Aid Corp.

Walgreens recently announced plans to sell much of its pharmacy wholesaling business in Europe, limiting its focus on its US namesake chain and the Boots UK pharmacy chain.

Less shopping traffic amid the coronavirus pandemic is exacerbating Walgreens’ retail struggle, and the company’s efforts to transform itself into a healthcare service provider have yet to take place. The company is also expected to play a pivotal role in administering the Covid-19 vaccine to the American public. Along with CVS, Walgreens worked with the federal government to administer doses in the country’s long-term care facilities.

In the last quarter, the pharmacy chain’s profit fell 25%, while total sales increased and the company worked on cost savings. Retail pharmacy sales grew 1.6% in the US, well below expectations, and executives said prescription volumes were weaker than planned.

Last year, Walgreens was among the worst-performing members of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, with a 29.4% share. The index gained 7.3% in 2020.

Ms. Brewer, the first African American and first woman to run a Walmart business unit, joined the retail giant in 2006 after two decades with Kimberly-Clark. Corp.

, where she started as a chemist. She is a graduate of Spelman College, where she is chair of the board of trustees.

There are four Black CEOs in the Fortune 500: Kenneth Frazier of pharma giant Merck & Co.,

Marvin Ellison of Lowe’s Cos.,

Roger Ferguson Jr. from TIAA, a financial services company, and René Jones, who heads M&T Bank Corp.

in New York City.

The number of women leading Fortune 500 companies reached a record high of 37 last year and more have been named since then.

Write to Dana Mattioli at [email protected] and Cara Lombardo at [email protected]