Fortune published its list of 2021's 50 most powerful women today, Oct 4., with CVS Health's CEO Karen Lynch leading the pack.
Ms. Lynch became the CEO of CVS Health on Feb. 1 after spending three years running Aetna, which CVS Health acquired in 2018. Throughout the pandemic, CVS became a hub for vaccinations and COVID-19 testing, administering more than 34 million COVID-19 vaccine doses since May 2020. "All of a sudden, people were thinking about us not as a corner drugstore but as a place to go for all their basic healthcare needs," Ms. Lynch told Fortune in an exclusive interview.
Ms. Lynch told Fortune the company's plans to remake hundreds of CVS drugstores into healthcare clinics and primary care destinations. "We’ll be far more than the corner drugstore. We’re pivoting to become more central to America’s healthcare." It plans to convert the stores into outlets that are devoted entirely to primary care and will be capable of serving tens of thousands of patients a day.
Other women on the list included Rosalind Brewer, CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance; Gail Boudreaux, president and CEO of Anthem; and Angela Hwang, group president of Pfizer Biopharmaceuticals.