Starbucks COO Roz Brewer will be the new CEO of drugstore giant Walgreens, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
Brewer became COO at Starbucks in 2017 and also sits on the Seattle company’s board. She previously joined Walmart in 2006 and became president and CEO at Walmart-owned Sam’s Club.
Brewer, 58, has also been an Amazon board member since 2019. That makes her role at Walgreens intriguing, given Amazon’s aggressive push into healthcare in recent years and Walgreens’ cloud computing partnership with Microsoft.
Update, 6:05 p.m. PT: Amazon confirmed to GeekWire that Brewer will step down from the company’s board effective Feb. 16. “As a member of Amazon’s Board of Directors, Roz Brewer has been hugely valuable because of her customer-obsessed mindset, passion for innovation, and focus on operational excellence,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to see Roz’s talent recognized by Walgreens and wish her success in her new role.”
This will be interesting! Roz Brewer is on Amazon's board but Walgreens competes w Amazon and has a big cloud computing strategic relationship with Microsoft https://t.co/zHPcwHVBpz
— Karen Weise (@KYWeise) January 26, 2021
The WSJ reported that Brewer will be the only Black female leading a Fortune 500 company. Brewer was the first woman and first black chief operating officer at Starbucks, and the second black woman to join the Amazon board.
On its earnings call Tuesday, Starbucks said Brewer was leaving in February to take a CEO job at an undisclosed publicly-traded company. We’ve reached out to the company to confirm the WSJ report. Update: Walgreens has since confirmed that Brewer will be CEO, effective March 15.
CNBC reported that Brewer was expected to succeed current Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson.
