Walgreens Names Joseph Magnacca President of Daily Living Products and Solutions

DEERFIELD, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Walgreens (NYSE:WAG)(NASDAQ:WAG) today announced that Joseph Magnacca will become the company’s new President of Daily Living Products and Solutions. In his new role Magnacca will oversee Walgreens marketing and merchandising operations led by Chief Marketing Officer, Kim Feil and Chief Merchandising Officer, Bryan Pugh. In addition, Magnacca will continue to lead the integration of the Duane Reade drugstores, which Walgreens acquired in April 2010.

“We are bringing together and raising the profile of one of the strongest teams in retail to lead our marketing and merchandising efforts and enhance our daily living products business, much as we have already enhanced our pharmacy, health and wellness services and solutions business”

In his expanded role, Magnacca will bring together Walgreens marketing and merchandising functions to help enhance and carry out the company’s strategy to be America’s first choice for health and daily living.

“We are bringing together and raising the profile of one of the strongest teams in retail to lead our marketing and merchandising efforts and enhance our daily living products business, much as we have already enhanced our pharmacy, health and wellness services and solutions business,” said Walgreens President and CEO Greg Wasson. “Joe’s exceptional strategic market focus, combined with the leadership, experience and expertise that Kim and Bryan have brought to our marketing and merchandising operations means we are now better positioned than ever to meet the daily living needs of our customers. In addition, the creative innovations and improvements that Joe brought to Duane Reade will now benefit and be extended across our entire organization.”

A retail industry veteran of more than 20 years, Magnacca served as vice president of marketing and merchandising for Loblaw, Canada’s leading food distributer and provider of general merchandise products and services, and as executive vice president of merchandising and category management for Shoppers Drug Mart, the largest drug chain in Canada. In 2008, Joe joined Duane Reade as senior vice president and chief merchandising officer. He was subsequently promoted to executive vice president at Duane Reade and then to president of the New York-based drugstore chain following its acquisition by Walgreens. In his new role, he will continue to report to President and CEO Greg Wasson.

Feil, who joined Walgreens in 2008, is leading a new marketing organization to respond to the evolving needs of the company’s customers and patients. “As Chief Marketing Officer for Health and Daily Living Solutions, Kim will be responsible for not only all of our consumer marketing activities including Duane Reade, but also our rapidly expanding business-to-business marketing efforts. Over the past two years, Kim has been integral to our transformation, and has created some of the most focused, results-oriented consumer marketing campaigns in our company’s history,” Wasson said.

Pugh joined Walgreens in 2009 and was named to his current position as Chief Merchandising Officer later that year. “Bryan has forged one of the strongest merchandising teams in retail. His leadership these past two years has been absolutely critical to the growth and performance of our front-end business through our transformational customer centric retailing initiative, and it will be even more important in the years ahead as we continue to enhance the customer experience at Walgreens,” Wasson said.

About Walgreens

Walgreens (www.walgreens.com) is the nation's largest drugstore chain with fiscal 2010 sales of $67 billion. The company operates 7,689 drugstores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Each day, Walgreens provides nearly 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 pharmacy benefit solutions and 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. Take Care Health Systems is a Walgreens subsidiary that is the largest and most comprehensive manager of worksite health centers and in-store convenient care clinics, with more than 700 locations throughout the country.