Walgreens Announces Executive Changes

Walgreens (NYSE:WAG)(NASDAQ:WAG) today announced the following executive changes:

George J. Riedl, who currently heads the company’s merchandising division, has been named senior vice president of pharmacy innovation and purchasing in the pharmacy services department, effective March 1. Riedl, 48, will oversee all pharmaceutical purchasing along with rollout of the POWER project, which is designed to enhance patient-pharmacist interaction and reduce costs. POWER is currently operational in more than 360 Florida stores and is anticipated to roll out to all 774 Florida stores by the end of August.

“During his 27 years with Walgreens, George has led several areas in pharmacy services, e-commerce and purchasing,” said Walgreens President and CEO Greg Wasson. “He brings vast knowledge of our entire company to his new role, and his pharmacy experience uniquely positions him for taking the implementation of POWER forward and driving our transformation of community pharmacy.”

Riedl joined Walgreens in 1982 as a pharmacy intern, graduating the following year with a bachelor of science degree in pharmacy from the University of Illinois. He was a store pharmacist and district pharmacy supervisor until 1991, when he moved to company headquarters. There, he held various positions in Walgreens pharmacy services and e-commerce departments before being named a general merchandise manager in purchasing in 2000. He has led the company’s purchasing and merchandising departments since 2003.

Bryan Pugh, 46, has been named vice president of merchandising effective March 1, replacing Riedl. Pugh joined Walgreens earlier this year as vice president of store format development. He’ll continue in that role while adding responsibility for merchandising.

“Bryan brings a quarter century of terrific merchant expertise to Walgreens, including a combination of store operations and merchandising responsibility for Wal-Mart and Tesco,” said Wasson.

Over the last three years with Tesco USA, Pugh designed the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store operations model and launched the retail grocery chain on the West Coast, where it grew to 90 locations in less than a year.

Prior to his Tesco experience, Pugh spent six years with CP Group of Asia, opening hypermarkets in China and Thailand and having responsibility for all purchasing, including consumables, over-the-counter health and wellness, electronics, clothing and other categories. From 1985 to 1993, he worked for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., moving up from an assistant store manager in the Sam’s Club division to vice president of membership marketing.

Pugh was a marketing major at Arkansas State University.

Thomas J. Connolly, 49, has been promoted to vice president of facilities development effective March 1, overseeing real estate, construction and facilities planning, design and engineering. Connolly succeeds senior vice president of facilities development William A. Shiel, 58, who has retired after a 38-year career with Walgreens.

“Bill spent most of his career building our retail store base into the powerhouse it is today, and we’re grateful to him for that accomplishment,” said Wasson. “Tom also is a top real estate person. He’s a creative thinker who will effectively manage our reduced organic store opening rate, while placing more focus on store redesigns.”

Connolly came to Walgreens in 1985 as a real estate representative. He was promoted to a real estate manager in 1986 and to a senior real estate manager in 1990. He was named a director of real estate in 1996 and a divisional vice president in 2000.

Connolly received a bachelor of science degree in finance from the University of Illinois in 1982 and is a member of the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Walgreens (www.walgreens.com) is the nation's largest drugstore chain with fiscal 2008 sales of $59 billion. The company operates 6,658 drugstores in 49 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Walgreens provides the most convenient access to consumer goods and services and cost-effective pharmacy, health and wellness services in America through its retail drugstores, Walgreens Health Services division and Walgreens Health and Wellness division. Walgreens Health Services assists pharmacy patients and prescription drug and medical plans through Walgreens Health Initiatives Inc. (a pharmacy benefit manager), Walgreens Mail Service Inc., Walgreens Home Care Inc., Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy LLC and SeniorMed LLC (a pharmacy provider to long-term care facilities). Walgreens Health and Wellness division includes Take Care Health Systems, the largest and most comprehensive manager of worksite health and wellness centers and in-store convenient care clinics, with more than 690 locations throughout the country.