Walgreens names Starbucks CEO Roz Brewer as CEO

Shares of Walgreens, which has a market value of about $ 43 billion, rose 7.4% hours after the Wall Street Journal reported.

Starbucks said Tuesday that Brewer will leave at the end of February for a new role at another public company. Before joining the coffee house chain, Mrs. Brewer Walmart CEO Inc.’s

Sam’s Club division for five years.

Me. Brewer, 58, has been chief operating officer and board member at Starbucks since 2017. She helped shift Starbucks to a focus on continuing operations during the pandemic and worked to diversify the company’s leadership. Starbucks said last fall that it would commit executive compensation to the growing minority representation in its workforce, and that training in bias for industry leaders is required.

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

amid pressure on the company to give more diversity to its board. Amazon is increasingly expanding into the healthcare space and becoming more of a competitor to companies like Walgreens and CVS. In 2018, Amazon bought the online pharmacy PillPack for $ 1 billion.

Walgreens, the largest U.S. pharmacy chain, is struggling to reverse itself, an attempt complicated by the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Pessina, an Italian billionaire, took over five years ago after the merger of Walgreens and the European pharmacy chain Alliance Boots.

Where competitor CVS Health Corp.

built a healthcare facility in 2006 through the acquisition of pharmacy benefit manager Caremark and insurer Aetna Inc., Walgreens has deviated from overall acquisitions following unsuccessful attempts to buy insurer Humana Inc.

and pharmacy competitor Rite Aid Corp.

Walgreens recently announced plans to sell a large portion of its wholesale pharmacy industry in Europe, focusing on its US name chain and the Boots pharmacy chain in the UK.

Less store traffic amid the coronavirus pandemic exacerbates Walgreens’ retail struggles, and the company’s efforts to transform itself into a healthcare provider have yet to take hold. The company is also expected to play a key role in administering the Covid-19 vaccine to the American public. Together with CVS, Walgreens is working with the federal government to administer doses at the country’s long-term care facilities.

In the last quarter, the pharmacy chain’s profit fell by 25%, even though total revenue increased and the company worked to reduce costs. Retail sales in the U.S. rose 1.6 percent, well below expectations, with executives saying prescription volumes were weaker than planned.

Last year, Walgreens was among the worst performing Dow Jones industrial average, with its shares falling 29.4%. The index rose by 7.3% in 2020.

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

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

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

Marvin Ellison of the hardware store chain Lowe’s Cos.,

Roger Ferguson Jr. of TIAA, a financial services firm, and René Jones, who manages M&T Bank Corp.

In New York.

The number of women running Fortune 500 companies peaked at 37 last year and more have been hired since then.

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