16 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021
BETWEEN THE
LINESare becoming more critical in terms
of the whole care therapy around a
patient.Drugstores including Walgreens
have struggled against Amazon. 5
How do you compete?
The health care space is wide open. I
think there’s room for all of us to play.
We’re not so intimidated about what
Amazon can do. To me it’s interesting
to see what we could do with Ama-
zon or do with Microsoft. I look at all
the data that Apple has been collect-
ing just by doing the health fitness
apps—could we tie into that? What I
want for WBA is to be able to partner
with these companies, because there
are ways for us to accelerate great
health care globally.What has surprised you the most
as you’ve gotten more steeped in
the business?
I really understand the true cost of
health care, and who gets paid and
who doesn’t. It’s totally out of bal-
ance in terms of who benefits, both
financially and then intrinsically
from the patient care standpoint.
It’s a long stream. So you might
go to visit a primary care physi-
cian and then there’s the insurance
arm, and then you might need other
services—physical therapy or getting
your prescription filled. There are a
lot of mouths to feed in this whole
channel. We need to make sure that
the person who doesn’t suffer is the
patient, because they can’t afford it.
We’re doing a lot of work to try to
get our costs down, like automating
everything behind the pharmacist.
We want to be bigger and better
than just dispensing pills.^6 We
want to help people maybe not be
so dependent upon medicine. That’s
another way to get costs down—to
have a healthier society.SHOP OR SHIP?What’s the retail landscape going to
look like in 10 years?
When the pandemic hit, retailers
went into alternative channels^8 that
were so novel only a year ago. There
were only a few companies that did
pickup in-store, and now almost every
store and every restaurant can do that.
We’re going to start to see the
great reconnection that we were talk-
ing about as I was leaving Starbucks.
People are going to want to go places
where they connect. Specialty items
and experiences that you can create
in a physical building are going to be
a real opportunity. And then every-
thing else will be, just ship it to me.
We’ll continue to see a wider spread
of people using digital to purchase.
I look at my tiny little nieces and
nephews—they know how to order
stuff at 3 or 4 years old. You have to
watch your iPad.You’re the youngest of
five and became the only
one to leave Michigan
when you attended
Spelman College. 7
How did that shape you?
My parents never went to college, so
filling out a college application was
foreign to them. My siblings helped
me, but I really broke that umbilical
cord more than they did. They’re
all still in Michigan. It was a game
changer for me because I was totally
on my own. I was a working college
student starting a whole new life.
My dad would tell me he did the
same thing at 18. He left southern
Alabama—a Black male getting out
of the South at a time when things
were risky for him to be there. He
and I would have this thing about
“the great breakaway.” We had that
in common.
THE CONVERSATION RETAIL(5) Brewer meets
Bezos: She joined
the board of Amazon
in 2019, the week
her noncompete
with Walmart ended,
and stepped down
earlier this year after
her appointment
to Walgreens was
announced.(6) Your phar-
macy is ready
for pickup: In
September, WBA
spent $970 million
to take a major-
ity stake in Shields
Health Solutions, a
specialty pharmacy
that partners with
hospitals.(7) A proud Jag-
uar: Brewer chairs
the historically Black
college’s board of
trustees and funds
an annual scholar-
ship program for
first-generation
students.(8) Retail revolu-
tion: Walgreens
launched curbside
pickup in 2020 and
said in July that
it had completed
6 million curbside,
drive-thru, and last-
mile delivery orders.