Gregory Wasson

Gregory David Wasson (born October 19, 1958) is co-founder and president of Wasson Enterprise,[1] a family-based investment office, the executive chairman of Innventure,[2] co-founder of CoolerScreens,[3] and the former president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ: WBA). Prior to the merger of Walgreens and Alliance Boots,[4] Wasson was president and CEO of Walgreens,[5] the US's largest retail community pharmacy chain.

Gregory Wasson
Born
Gregory David Wasson

(1958-10-19) October 19, 1958
Lafayette, Indiana, US
EducationTwin Lakes High School, Monticello, Indiana
Alma materPurdue University
OccupationCo-founder and president of Wasson Enterprise, former president and CEO of Walgreens, director of Verizon Communications, director of PNC Financial Services Group, director of Health Care Service Corporation
SuccessorStefano Pessina
Websitehttp://www.wassonenterprise.com

Wasson served as CEO at Walgreens from 2009 to 2014. Wasson joined the company in 1980, and was appointed to higher positions, including president of Walgreens Health Initiatives in 2002, senior vice president in 2004, executive vice president in 2005, and president and chief operating officer in 2007.

Wasson currently serves on the board of directors of Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), The Economic Club of Chicago, Corporate Leadership Center, and the Museum of Science and Industry.[6][7][8]

Early life

Wasson was born October 19, 1958, in Lafayette, Indiana, to Richard and Phyllis Wasson.[9] His family lived in Delphi until he was 13, and then moved to nearby Monticello, Indiana. Wasson graduated from Twin Lakes High School.[10]

Wasson studied pharmacy at Purdue University and met his future wife there. They married on their graduation day in 1981.[9]

Career

Wasson joined Walgreens as a pharmacy intern in 1980.[11] Three days after graduating from college, he relocated to Houston as a management trainee. He was managing his first store four months later.[9]

He was promoted to district manager in Milwaukee in 1986, with 30 store managers reporting to him.[9] Wasson was promoted to a regional vice president of the store operations division in 1999.[11]

In 2001, he was promoted again to Walgreens vice president and made an executive vice president of Walgreens Health Initiatives, the company's pharmacy benefit manager (PBM). Wasson was promoted to president of Walgreens Health Initiatives in 2002, Walgreens senior vice president in 2004 and to a Walgreens executive vice president in 2005.

In 2007, he was named president and chief operating officer of Walgreens, succeeding Jeff Rein.[11] In 2009, he was named CEO.[11]

In 2012, Walgreens and Alliance Boots entered into a strategic transaction to create the first global pharmacy-led, health and wellbeing enterprise.[4] After two years, on December 31, 2014, Walgreens completed the global merger with Alliance Boots[4] —a pharmacy-led health and beauty group across Europe with a presence in more than 25 countries. After the close of the second step of the Alliance Boots transaction, Wasson retired from Walgreens after a 35-year career with the company.[12]

In 2016, Greg and his wife Kim Wasson founded Wasson Enterprise, a family-based investment firm whose goal is to identify, market, and commercialize sustainable businesses.[1] Wasson Enterprise's first partnership is with Innventure, which seeks to commercialize disruptive technology for multinational organizations.[13] Wasson is also the co-founder of CoolerScreens, an in-store digital marketing and merchandising platform focusing on retail point of sale media.[14]

In addition to his role at Wasson Enterprise, Wasson has served on the board of directors of several companies. He sat on the board of Verizon Communications from March 2013 through October 2018,[15] and was on the board of PNC Financial Services Group from July 2015 through October 2018.[16] He has also been a director of Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC),[17] the largest customer-owned health insurance company,[18] since November 2015.

Wasson has been a director of AmerisourceBergen Corporation,[19] a global pharmaceutical sourcing and distribution services, with which Walgreens has a long-term strategic partnership,[20] and a directorsof Alliance Boots GmbH.

Past roles include chairman of National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS)[21][22] the vice chairman of Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA),[23] member of the Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC),[24] The Wall Street Journal CEO Council,[25] and the civic committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago,[26] as well as being a member of the British-American Business Council International Advisory Board.[27] He served many years as a board member of Consumer Goods Forum (CGF),[28] The Field Museum,[29] and the Midtown Educational Foundation[30] and a member of the Illinois chapter of the American Cancer Society's CEOs Against Cancer.[31]

Wasson is on the trustee board of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry (MSI)[32] and is a member of The Business Council, Corporate Leadership Center, The Economic Club of Chicago, The Commercial Club of Chicago and Chicago Club.

In 2015, Wasson received the Sheldon W. Fantle Lifetime Achievement Award from National Association of Chain Drug Stores’ (NACDS)[33] and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) gave Wasson the GMA Hall of Achievement Award.[34] In 2016, he received two awards from Purdue University, the Distinguished Alumni Award, and the Career Achievement Award.

SEC charges

In 2018, the SEC charged Wasson, Walgreens, and former Walgreens CFO Wade Miquelon for misleading investors during Greg's time at the company. While neither admitting nor denying the findings, Wasson agreed to pay a fine of $160,000. Walgreens agreed to pay $34.5 million, while Miquelon also paid a $160,000 penalty.[35][36][37][38] Within a week of the agreement, Wasson resigned his board positions with Verizon Communications and PNC Financial Services Group.[39]

Personal life

Wasson married Kimberly "Kim" Wasson (née Munt) on May 16, 1981,[40] and they have two daughters. He and his family attend Long Grove Community Church, where his wife Kim previously served as the compassion/outreach ministry leader.[41]

gollark: The "cryptocurrencies" without either of those are stupid and not decentralized.
gollark: Specifically: proof of stake is basically built-in compounding inequality; proof of space burns disks instead.
gollark: Proof of work is rather awful because it actively requires burning compute for no value, but all the alternatives are really bad too.
gollark: There are ways around this but they don't seem to have helped.
gollark: Cryptocurrencies are cool *technology*, but they also seem to not be very... good... as currency. Partly this is just network effects but partly high transaction fees due to things.

References
  1. "Wasson Enterprise". Wasson Enterprise. Retrieved 2016-03-29.
  2. MacArthur, Kate. "Former Walgreens CEO Greg Wasson is 'relaunching' in the startup scene". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2019-02-14.
  3. "Chicago Startup Cooler Screens Is Testing Its Digital Doors With Walgreens". www.americaninno.com. Retrieved February 14, 2019.
  4. "Walgreens and Alliance Boots Form Strategic Partnership to Create the First Global Pharmacy-Led, Health and Wellbeing Enterprise (NYSE:WBA)". investor.walgreensbootsalliance.com. Archived from the original on 2017-02-18. Retrieved 2016-03-29.
  5. "Welcome to Walgreens – Your Home for Prescriptions, Photos and Health Information". Walgreens.com. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
  6. "Walgreens Boots to pay $34.5 million penalty to SEC". Chain Store Age. 28 September 2018. Retrieved 14 February 2019.
  7. "Board of Trustees". www.msichicago.org. Retrieved 2019-02-14.
  8. "Economic Club of Chicago – Board of Directors". www.econclubchi.org. Retrieved 2019-02-14.
  9. Frost, Peter (25 June 2012). "Executive Profile: Greg Wasson, CEO of Walgreen Co". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2 November 2014.
  10. "Delphi native is Walgreen's new president and COO". Carroll County Comet. 2007-04-25. Archived from the original on 29 November 2014. Retrieved 3 November 2014.
  11. Sachdev, Ameet; Hirst, Ellen Jean; Wohl, Jessica (11 December 2014). "Walgreen CEO Wasson to step down". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2020-04-27.
  12. "Walgreens President and CEO Greg Wasson Announces He Will Retire Following Completion of Merger with Alliance Boots | Walgreens Newsroom". news.walgreens.com. Retrieved 2016-03-29.
  13. Feldman, Amy. "Can Billion-Dollar Startups Be Created From Big Companies' Unused IP? Ex-Walgreens CEO Bets 'Yes'". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-02-14.
  14. O’Reilly, Lara (2019-01-11). "Walgreens Tests Digital Cooler Doors With Cameras to Target You With Ads". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2019-02-14.
  15. "Gregory D. Wasson". www.verizon.com. Retrieved 2016-03-29.
  16. "PNC Bank – Biography". phx.corporate-ir.net. Retrieved 2016-03-29.
  17. "Health Care Service Corporation". HCSC. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
  18. "Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC) – Who We Are". www.hcsc.com. Archived from the original on 2016-04-02. Retrieved 2016-03-29.
  19. "Corporate Overview". AmerisourceBergen. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
  20. "News Release". AmerisourceBergen. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
  21. "Home Page – National Association of Chain Drug Stores". Nacds.org. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
  22. "Wasson Hammers Theme of Innovation, Engagement at NACDS Regional Chain Conference". www.nacds.org. Archived from the original on 2015-03-18. Retrieved 2016-03-29.
  23. "Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) Home". RILA. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
  24. "Healthcare Leadership Council – Care. Collaborate. Change". Hlc.org. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
  25. "The Wall Street Journal CIO Network Conference". Ceocouncil.wsj.com. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
  26. "The Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago – Our focus: improving Chicago as a place to live, work and conduct business". Civiccommittee.org. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
  27. "BABC". BABC. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
  28. "Gregory Wasson". Theconsumergoodsforum.com. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
  29. "About the Museum". The Field Museum. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
  30. "Midtown Educational Foundation". Midtown-metro.org. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
  31. "CEOs Against Cancer". Cancer.org. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
  32. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-04-09. Retrieved 2016-03-29.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  33. "Greg Wasson, David Heist and Lou Martire Honored with Chain Pharmacy's Highest Honors at NACDS Annual Meeting". www.nacds.org. Archived from the original on 2016-03-31. Retrieved 2016-03-29.
  34. "GMA to Honor Three Industry Leaders with Hall of Achievement Awards | GMA". www.gmaonline.org. Retrieved 2016-03-29.
  35. "SEC.gov | SEC Charges Walgreens and Two Former Executives With Misleading Investors About Forecasted Earnings Goal". www.sec.gov. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  36. "ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEEDING File No. 3-18850. ORDER INSTITUTING CEASE-AND DESIST PROCEEDINGS PURSUANT TO SECTION 8A OF THE SECURITIES ACT OF 1933, MAKING FINDINGS, AND IMPOSING A CEASE-AND-DESIST ORDER" (PDF). SEC.gov. 2018-09-28.
  37. LaVito, Angelica (2018-09-28). "Walgreens to pay $34.5 million to settle charges it misled investors".
  38. "Walgreens Pays $35 Million Fine to Settle SEC Claims That It Misled Investors". Fortune. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  39. Surane, Jenny. "PNC, Verizon Say Wasson to Leave Boards After His SEC Settlement". news.bloomberglaw.com. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  40. "Rising to the Top at Walgreens". Purdue. Retrieved 3 November 2014.
  41. "Kim Wasson | LinkedIn". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2016-03-29.
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