Starbucks Chief Operating Officer Rosalind Brewer continues to break new ground in corporate America.
At the end of February, Brewer, the coffeehouse company’s first black and first female COO, will leave her position as CEO of drugstore chain Walgreens. In this new role, she will be the only black woman to currently serve as Fortune 500 CEO, and only the third black woman to lead a Fortune 500 company in history. Ursula Burns, who served as CEO of Xerox from 2009 to 2016, was the first, and Mary Winston, who served as interim CEO at Bed Bath & Beyond in 2019, was the second.
Prior to joining Starbucks in 2017, Brewer spent five years as CEO of Sam’s Club, which is owned by Walmart. As a senior executive in corporate America, she has spoken openly about the bias and challenges she faces as one of the few black women in the C-suite.
Starbucks Chief Operations Officer and Group President Rosalind “Roz” Brewer speaks at the annual shareholders meeting in Seattle, Washington on March 20, 2019.
Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images
“If you’re a black woman, you’re often mistaken,” she said during a 2018 speech at her alma mater Spelman College, a women-only HBCU. “You’re mistaken as someone who really couldn’t have that top job. Sometimes you’re mistaken for kitchen help. Sometimes people assume you’re in the wrong place, and all I can think of in the back of my head is, ‘No, you’re in the wrong place. ”
During the speech, Brewer recalled the time she was invited to an exclusive CEO roundtable in New York City when she was the CEO of Sam’s Club. At the reception, she said, she met a fellow CEO and introduced herself in the same way that the other men in the room had introduced themselves: “Roz Brewer or Sam’s Club.” After exchanging introductions, she said the co-CEO asked her what she was doing at the company and then asked if she was leading marketing. Astonished by the question when the invitation to the event stated that it was a round table discussion for CEOs, Brewer said she responded by saying, “No, that’s my organization.”
After the man continued the conversation by asking if she worked in merchandising, Brewer said she gave the co-CEO a “side-eye” as she was actually the keynote for the event. “I loved the look on his face when my biography was read,” she said. “It was a good day.”
Brewer, who was number 48 on the Forbes 2020 Power Women list, explained that the CEO’s round table conference was one of many incidents where she faced prejudice inside and outside of work. “If there’s a place where bias doesn’t exist, I haven’t found it,” she said.
Recognizing that many women experience bias and gender discrimination in the workplace, Brewer said her biggest message to women in business is to “stand firm” and know that “your vote matters”.
“You will be wrong sometimes, and there are a number of ways to clear up your mistakes,” she told television host Shaun Robinson on Facebook in December 2020. First of all, admit that you made the mistake. But keep using your voice. ‘
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