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The Most Transformative CEOs of 2022
Article

The Most Transformative CEOs of 2022

Rebecca Knight, Shana Lebowitz and Marguerite Ward
Business Insider UK, 2022
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Editorial Rating

8

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  • Well Structured
  • Background
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Recommendation

Writing for Business Insider, Rebecca Knight, Shana Lebowitz and Marguerite Ward profile a trio of CEOs who have pursued effective strategies to improve their companies’ operations, profitability and market position. These CEOs represent different industries, but each created solutions and opportunities that show their understanding of their company’s operations, customers and employees. The CEOs also invested in addressing social issues. To select the CEOs it profiled, Insider solicited nominations, studied corporate financial data and considered “qualitative evidence” of firms’ approaches to significant social ills. Its findings highlight what the right CEO can accomplish.

Summary

CEO Rosalind Brewer is transforming Walgreens into a significant healthcare provider, as well as a pharmacy company.

CEO Rosalind Brewer took the reins at Walgreens Boots Alliance during the COVID pandemic. A former chief operating officer at Starbucks and past CEO of Sam’s Club, Brewer is one of only two Black female Fortune 500 CEOs (the other is Ursula Burns of Xerox). She has initiated significant changes at Walgreens through corporate acquisitions, investments and infrastructure technology. Under her leadership, Walgreens emphasizes diversity and inclusion. It became the first S&P 500 firm to publish data about the number of disabled people in its workforce.

Brewer shepherds her company forward in a competitive market as she seeks greater employee diversity and inclusion while prioritizing wages and benefits. Following the example of Walgreens’ larger competitor, CVS Health, Brewer intends to make healthcare as significant a component of Walgreens as its established pharmaceutical, retail and over-the-counter drugs business.

The nearly $9 billion acquisition of Summit Health-CityMD was a major step toward this ...

About the Authors

Rebecca Knight is a senior correspondent at Insider, where Shana Lebowitz and Marguerite Ward are correspondents; Ward also oversees the Equity Talk section.

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