Rite Aid named a former Humana executive as its interim CEO Jan. 9, effective immediately, upon the departure of Heyward Donigan as president and CEO.
In addition to exiting the president and CEO role, Ms. Donigan also departed as a member of its board. She was named to the top role of 2,257-store Rite Aid in Aug. 2019.
Ms. Donigan's departure comes as Rite Aid experiences financial volatility, having reported a loss of $67 million in its latest quarterly results in December while signaling the opportunity to close more stores this year pointing to "headwinds including pharmacy margin, seasonal markdowns and higher shrink," in Ms. Donigan's words.
Replacing Ms. Donigan in an interim capacity is Elizabeth Burr, a member of Rite Aid's board. Ms. Burr most recently served as vice president, head of health ventures and chief innovation officer at Humana. Ms. Burr previously spent time as chief commercial officer of digital health company Carrot, managing director of Citi Ventures, and entrepreneur-in-residence at EBay.
Ms. Donigan previously served as president and CEO of healthcare consumer platform Sapphire Digital and, before that, president and CEO of ValueOptions, a behavioral health company now named Beacon Health Options. Ms. Donigan also spent time in executive roles with Premera Blue Cross, Cigna, GE and Empire BCBS.
Rite Aid has initiated a search to identify a permanent CEO.