Rosalind Brewer

In January 2021, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. named Starbucks Corp. operating chief Rosalind Brewer as its next chief executive, setting her up to be the only Black woman leading a Fortune 500 company. She announced she would step down, by mutual agreement, on September 1 2023. Ms. Brewer replaced Stefano Pessina, who said in July 2020 that he would step down as CEO once the drugstore company found a new leader. Mr. Pessina, one of Walgreens’ biggest individual investors, stayed on the company’s board to serve as executive chairman. In September 2017, Starbucks Corporation announced the appointment of former President and CEO of Sam’s Club and current Starbucks board member, Rosalind Brewer as Group President & Chief Operation Officer. As group president and chief operating officer, Brewer will lead the company’s operating businesses across the Americas (Canada, U.S. and Latin America), as well as the global functions of supply chain, product innovation, and store development organizations. When Brewer joined Sam’s Club in 2012, she brought a wealth of talent to the members-only warehouse operating segment responsible for serving the needs of individual and small-business members. She joined Wal-Mart in 2006 as regional vice president responsible for overseeing operations in Georgia. She became division president of the Southeast and later president of Wal-Mart East. Prior to joining Wal-Mart, Brewer worked for 22 years at Kimberly-Clark Corp. where she started as a scientist and eventually becoming president of the Global Nonwovens Sector in 2004. Brewer sits on the board of Lockheed Martin Corp. and is the recipient of the Spelman College Legacy of Leadership award. In 2013 and 2014, she was named one of the “World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” by Forbes; and in 2010 and 2011, Fortune magazine named her one of the “World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.” A 1984 graduate of Spelman, Brewer has served on the reunion planning committee and worked with student recruitment and mentoring initiatives. Director of Molson Coors since February 2006. Ms. Brewer has been Senior Vice President and Division President of Operations and Regional General Manager of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. since 2006. From 2004 to 2006, she served as President of Global Nonwovens division of Kimberly-Clark Corporation. Ms. Brewer had been with Kimberly-Clark since 1984, and held a variety of leadership positions across multiple businesses spanning technology and business aspects of the company. Ms. Brewer is immediate past president of Georgia's non-profit Board of Directors Network, and serves on several other non-profit boards. She holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Spelman College, and has been a trustee of Spelman College since 2006.