Walgreens CEO Roz Brewer on being a trailblazer within the C-Suite: How she acquired there and why she left Starbucks

“It’s by no means a very good feeling,” Brewer informed the viewers at Fortune’s 2022 MPW Summit on Monday evening. “I’m nonetheless strolling in and being the one [black woman] within the room,” she stated, including that variety in company America ought to be a lot stronger than what it’s proper now.

Brewer, who stated she didn’t have the standard CEO path, has been the primary plenty of instances in her life. The youngest of 5 youngsters, Brewer was the primary in her household to go to school. She was additionally the primary African American and the primary lady to turn out to be the chief working officer (COO) and group president at Starbucks. And as CEO of Walgreens, Brewer is certainly one of solely two black girls to presently lead a Fortune 500 firm (Thasunda Brown Duckett is the opposite as CEO of TIAA). 

But when requested when she knew that she was finally going to be CEO, Brewer stated that wasn’t the unique ambition. “Oh, shoot, I by no means actually knew that. It simply type of got here,” she stated. “In lots of instances, I had extra expertise than I knew or believed.”

Brewer stated her position as COO at Starbucks actually taught her the significance of execution and planning, in addition to setting a imaginative and prescient and targets. “I shortly discovered that it was in all probability time.” 

When it got here to leaving Starbucks and taking up the reins at Walgreens, Brewer admitted timing was every little thing on this occasion. Brewer informed the viewers that she thought Starbucks was one of the best job whereas she was there. “It was enjoyable, proper? It’s espresso. It’s lattes.” 

“However as issues had been occurring round me, there was that rising activist in me—and it wasn’t sufficient,” Brewer stated. “When issues occurred and this second got here, the chance led the second. I kind of snapped in a great way. This was one thing that simply pulled me in and made me change my thoughts about plenty of issues.”

“I didn’t say I need to be a CEO of a healthcare entity,” Brewer stated. “Titles by no means impressed me. Cash by no means impressed me. I actually wished to be within the place the place it was occurring.”

Brewer describes the sensation as a “this little, tiny factor in me that looks like change is all the time gonna occur. And if it’s not occurring, I’m going to push it and make it occur,” she stated. “And you’ll’t try this typically from the again room. You bought to be up there. However then you’ll be able to’t do it with out the abilities, and so I shortly knew I [had] to construct to be able to get the place I can do my finest work and I can really feel my finest self—and that’s after I’m proper on the sting of the place it’s occurring.”

Brewer stated that through the early a part of the COVID-19 pandemic, she had skilled by means of family and friends what number of well being inequities existed. And healthcare wasn’t a model new frontier for Brewer; she ran retail pharmacies whereas she was with Walmart and Sam’s Membership earlier in her profession.  

“I simply felt prefer it was time for me to take every little thing I’ve discovered and put it in opposition to one of many largest issues I assumed I used to be going to ever face in my life,” Brewer stated. 

Regardless of the challenges posed by the pandemic, Brewer sees main Walgreens during the last 12 months and a half as a possibility. “You study lots in a disaster,” she stated. “I shortly acquired an opportunity to see the corporate from the within out. I’m truly falling in love with the corporate. It has a lot alternative to develop and in an business that’s simply ripe for change.”

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