Rosalind “Roz” Brewer, one of the most accomplished executives in modern corporate America, will receive the 2026 Legacy Award at the BLACK ENTERPRISE Women of Power Summit, taking place March 11-15 at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
The honor recognizes Brewer’s decades-long career of breaking barriers and opening doors in some of the country’s most influential companies. Her résumé reads like a map of corporate firsts, each role another rung climbed on a ladder few had ever been invited to touch.
Brewer began her career in 1984 at Kimberly-Clark Corporation. Over the course of 22 years, she moved steadily through the company’s leadership ranks, eventually becoming president of the Global Nonwovens Division. It was an early sign of the leadership style that would come to define her career: sharp, strategic and impossible to overlook.
In 2006, Brewer joined Walmart, where she served in several senior leadership positions, including regional vice president and president of Walmart East. By 2012, she had been named president and CEO of Sam’s Club, becoming the first Black person to lead a Walmart division. The appointment marked a thunderclap moment in corporate America, with Brewer stepping into a role long reserved for others.
Her streak of milestones continued in 2017, when she joined Starbucks as chief operating officer and group president. There, Brewer became both the first woman and the first African American to hold the position.
Then, in March 2021, Brewer was named CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance and joined the company’s board of directors. At the time, she was among only a handful of Black women leading Fortune 500 companies, a constellation so small it could fit in a boardroom.
Beyond her executive leadership, Brewer has served on the boards of Amazon, Starbucks, Lockheed Martin and Molson Coors. She also currently serves on the board of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and is interim president and chair emerita of Spelman College.
With her latest honor in Las Vegas, Brewer’s legacy continues to glow like a lighthouse across the corporate skyline, guiding the next generation of women leaders toward wider horizons.
