- Previously president of e-commerce,
Chawla will lead new Digital and Marketing Division combining and
integrating e-commerce, enterprise-wide marketing and customer
loyalty and insights
- Graham Atkinson, chief marketing and
customer experience officer, to retire in January 2014; led
successful launch of record-setting Balance® Rewards loyalty
program
Walgreens (NYSE: WAG) (Nasdaq: WAG) today announced the
appointment of Sona Chawla, president of e-commerce, as president
of digital and chief marketing officer. In this new role, Chawla
will lead a newly created Digital and Marketing Division,
establishing a unified and integrated digital, enterprise-wide
marketing, and customer loyalty and insights group to advance
Walgreens “Well Experience” strategy and vision to be the first
choice in health and daily living in America and beyond.
Sona Chawla has been named Walgreens
president of digital and chief marketing officer. (Photo: Business
Wire)
“Digital technology continues to drive major change in retail
and health care, and Walgreens is moving full speed ahead to
harness and combine digital, marketing innovations and customer
loyalty and insights to give customers what they want, where and
when they want it,” said Greg Wasson, president and chief executive
officer. “With Sona’s success in establishing Walgreens as a retail
digital pioneer, her leadership of our combined digital and
marketing efforts will continue to accelerate our Well Experience
strategy to step out of the traditional drugstore format and create
a truly differentiated experience for customers and patients.”
“Bringing our digital, marketing and consumer technology
together and linking it with the powerful consumer data and
insights we get through our Balance® Rewards program and digital
channels will further position Walgreens as a customer-driven
brand,” said Alex Gourlay, executive vice president and president
of customer experience and daily living. “With her experience and
success in advancing Walgreens digital strategies and online
customer experience, Sona is the perfect leader to accelerate our
rapid evolution into omni-channel marketing and customer
engagement.”
Walgreens also announced today that Graham Atkinson, senior vice
president and chief marketing and customer experience officer, is
retiring at the end of January 2014. Atkinson has been responsible
for developing and leading Walgreens enterprise marketing and
loyalty strategies, with a specific emphasis on customer
experience. Atkinson led the successful and record-setting launch
of Walgreens Balance Rewards customer loyalty program in 2012, now
with more than 85 million members.
“Graham has had an extraordinary impact on Walgreens during his
three-year role with the company, and we are indebted to him for
his vision, leadership and accomplishments,” Wasson said. “We asked
Graham to join our team and take on a singular focus – to launch
the most successful customer loyalty program in retail history –
and he did just that. Beyond Balance Rewards, importantly, he also
instilled customer-centric principles into our culture and took on
the additional role of chief marketing officer in the past year to
build and develop our corporate marketing function.”
Chawla, as president of digital and chief marketing officer,
will lead the new Digital and Marketing Division that combines
three existing groups – e-commerce, corporate marketing and
customer loyalty and insights – that have significantly advanced
Walgreens Well Experience strategy. These groups have built a
strong corporate brand through an industry-leading web and mobile
presence, the Balance Rewards loyalty program and customer
segmentation and insights. Bringing these teams together will allow
the company to leverage its combined talent, knowledge and assets
to accelerate its omni-channel vision as part of Gourlay’s Customer
Experience and Daily Living organization.
“Our goal is to optimize our marketing investments and mix to
reach consumers where they are, as their use of digital media
continues to escalate,” Chawla said. “This means more than just
adding digital media to our marketing portfolio. We also will adopt
a digital mindset throughout our marketing efforts.”
Chawla joined Walgreens in July 2008 as senior vice president of
e-commerce and was promoted to her current position in January
2011. Her team has been responsible for the company’s digital
strategy and implementation to support the health and daily living
businesses across the Walgreens portfolio of websites, mobile and
stores.
Prior to joining Walgreens, she was vice president of global
online business at Dell, Inc., from 2006 to 2008 and worked at
Wells Fargo’s Internet Services Group from 2000 to 2006, where she
held several roles and left the company as executive vice president
of online sales, service and marketing. Prior to Wells Fargo,
Chawla worked for Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) from 1999 to
2000 and Mitchell Madison Group from 1994 to 1999. In 2012 Chawla
was appointed to the board of directors of Express, Inc., a
specialty retail apparel chain. She earned a bachelor of arts
degree in mathematics and computer science from Wellesley College
in 1990 and a master of science degree in management from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management in
1994.
About Walgreens
As the nation's largest drugstore chain with fiscal 2013 sales
of $72 billion, Walgreens (www.walgreens.com) vision is to be the
first choice in health and daily living for everyone in America,
and beyond. Each day, Walgreens provides more than 6 million
customers the most convenient, multichannel access to consumer
goods and services and trusted, cost-effective pharmacy, health and
wellness services and advice in communities across America.
Walgreens scope of pharmacy services includes retail, specialty,
infusion, medical facility and mail service, along with respiratory
services. These services improve health outcomes and lower costs
for payers including employers, managed care organizations, health
systems, pharmacy benefit managers and the public sector. The
company operates 8,131 drugstores in all 50 states, the District of
Columbia and Puerto Rico. Take Care Health Systems is a Walgreens
subsidiary that is the largest and most comprehensive manager of
worksite health and wellness centers and in-store convenient care
clinics, with more than 750 locations throughout the country.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: Statements
in this release that are not historical are forward-looking
statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as
"expect," “likely,” "outlook," “forecast,” "would," "could,"
"should," “can,” “will,” "project," "intend," "plan," "goal,”
“target,” “continue," "sustain," “synergy,” "on track," "believe,"
"seek," "estimate," "anticipate," "may," “possible,” "assume," and
variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to
identify such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking
statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve
risks, assumptions and uncertainties, including, but not limited
to, those described in Item 1A (Risk Factors) of our most recent
Annual Report on Form 10-K, which is incorporated herein by
reference, and in other documents that we file or furnish with the
Securities and Exchange Commission. Should one or more of these
risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying
assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially
from those indicated or anticipated by such forward-looking
statements. Accordingly, you are cautioned not to place undue
reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as
of the date they are made. Except to the extent required by law,
Walgreens does not undertake, and expressly disclaims, any duty or
obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statement after
the date of this release, whether as a result of new information,
future events, changes in assumptions or otherwise.
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available:
http://www.businesswire.com/multimedia/home/20131121005428/en/
WalgreensMichael Polzin,
847-315-2920http://news.walgreens.com@WalgreensNewsfacebook.com/Walgreens
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