Vineet Mehra Is Leaving Walgreens Boots Alliance

A spokesperson for Walgreens confirmed today that Mehra, who joined Walgreens in January 2019, made the decision to leave the company. His last day will be February 2. Next, he will take on a new opportunity at a not-yet-disclosed start-up based in Silicon Valley.

“Vineet Mehra, global chief marketing officer, WBA, and chief customer officer, Walgreens, has made the difficult decision to leave WBA to take on a new opportunity as chief growth officer at a start-up company in Silicon Valley,” a representative for Walgreens said in a statement. “His last day with the company will be February 2. Vineet has made significant contributions to WBA over the past two years and we wish him every success in his new venture.”

Additional details on his new role will be announced in the weeks to come.

It’s been almost exactly two years since Mehra first joined Walgreens as the brand’s chief marketing officer. Last July, he was elevated the chief customer officer role as well. In his role at the company, four CMOs report into him, along with various marketing-centric departments such as insights, marketing technology and marketing operations.

Mehra’s most high profile work at Walgreens Boots Alliance is likely the retailer’s digital revamp of its loyalty program. The partnership involved teaming up with Adobe Experience Cloud to create personalized experiences for the 100 million members in its loyalty programs in the U.S. and U.K.

“What we’re attempting to do here is create seamlessness, convenience and simplicity by orchestrating a lot of the complexity out of the frontline in healthcare and to automate and meet customers where they are,” Mehra told Adweek at the revamp’s rollout in June 2020.

Under his leadership, Walgreens Boots Alliance also extended its relationship with agency WPP, which handles PR, marketing and advertising efforts for the brand. That deal is in place until 2022, with that parties having an option to extend until 2024.

Walgreens has no details to share yet on Mehra’s successor.

Before joining Walgreens Boots Alliance, Mehra was the CMO and chief revenue officer for Ancestry and spent three years in various marketing roles at Johnson & Johnson.