Meet the Only Black Female CEO of a Fortune 500 Company
(NEW YORK. NY) Wall Street: While she is currently the only Black woman to lead a Fortune 500 company, Rosalind Brewer, the recently installed CEO of Walgreens, is well aware of everyone who paved the way for her. “The generation of [women] who came before me were all first-of-a-kinds. The first black woman to… the first black leader to… the first black judge to… the first black surgeon to… a generation of way makers,” she said in a 2018 commencement address at her alma mater, Spelman College. “My generation is what one might call ‘Generation P,’ and that P is for perseverance.”
And persevere she has—with gusto. After Brewer completed her undergraduate studies at Spelman College, the prestigious all-female, private, historically Black college in Atlanta—she was part of the first generation of her family to attend college—she went on to earn her graduate degree from the Director’s College at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business/Stanford Law School. She later continued on for an Advanced Management Program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
Post-college, Brewer went on to work as a scientist for 20+ years at the Kimberly-Clark Corporation before taking a position with Walmart in 2006. In 2012, she was named the president and CEO of Sam’s Club, which made her the first Black person to lead any Walmart division. When Brewer transitioned to her role as COO of Starbucks, she ran the businesses in United States, Canada, and Latin America. Brewer serves on the board of Amazon, Lockheed Martin, The Westminster Schools in Atlanta, the Board of Councilors for the Carter Presidential Center, and is the Chair of the Board of Trustees for her alma mater, Spelman College.
Despite her impressive achievements, Brewer has not been immune to racism. “When you’re a Black woman, you get mistaken a lot,” Brewer said in the same Spelman College speech in 2018. “You get mistaken as someone who could actually not have that top job. Sometimes you’re mistaken for kitchen help. Sometimes people assume you’re in the wrong place, and all I can think in the back of my head is, ‘No, you’re in the wrong place.” Time and time again, Brewer has proven herself to be in exactly the right place.
