CASE: Walgreens Boots Alliance
Chief Architect, Retail
The Situation
We were asked to recruit a Chief Architect for Walgreens in Chicago. Walgreens is the Retail Pharmacy USA division of Walgreens Boots Alliance. The division accounts for over $100b of WBA’s $140b annual revenue. We had an established relationship with WBA (for over 10 years), having recruited several executive IT leaders for them including the CIO of Walgreens.
As a highly federated global matrix, the company were seeking an IT leader who could work across the various platform groups, challenge conventional wisdom and help accelerate the innovation agenda at a Business Unit level. The role would have significant responsibility for shaping the technology choices Walgreens were making in digital, data & analytics and cloud.
We needed a leader who could provide strategic and tactical technology direction and management of IT resources to ensure the appropriate balance between tactical and strategic demand. They were also required to lead the creation and evolution of a technology roadmap that defined current technical architectures, future architectures, and the evolution for transition for all projects. Furthermore, they would need to develop and communicate strategies and roadmaps to document/explain how the current and future needs of the organization would be met in an efficient, sustainable, agile, and adaptable manner.
The Opportunity
WBA were making a considerable effort to move towards a truly “One IT culture” in which many of the platforms and services would be delivered through aligned centres of excellence. As part of this, they wanted to effectively turn Enterprise Architecture from a function that oversaw governance into one that inspired change,helping drive more conversations around innovation and improvement. They were looking for an individual to be recognised as an integral part of the overall IT conversation within the technology leadership team. Someone to mature the overall governance, processes and procedures and act as a regular contributor to the business / IT agenda.
The role had dotted line reporting to the CIO of Walgreens (acting as their strategic technology advisor) with solid line reporting to the VP of Enterprise Architecture for the group. This was the primary technical leadership role within Walgreens IT and was accountable for defining, leading and communicating the IT architecture strategy and operational guidelines that support the organization’s business strategies.
What made this interesting?
The chance to go to market for one of the world’s most admired brands, who are dedicated to consumer well-being and health at a time where patient and consumer health is radically transforming.
WBA themselves are going through tremendous transformation – not just from a technology perspective but in people, culture and operating model. They have recruited almost an entirely new C-level in the last 2 years at a time of frenetic change so finding someone who could “hit the ground running” was absolutely essential.
We have many great sponsors in the organisation but we are calling out Grant Ecker (VP for Group EA) who was phenomenal to work with and was instrumental in helping attract a high calibre bench.
What made this challenging?
Walgreens is the 800llb gorilla in the WBA group and while this individual was extremely strategic to Walgreens as a business unit, they would have to work as part of an overall group EA function. People of this size (Walgreen’s revenue in excess of $100b) are often the No1 in their organisation and therefore we had to target this level and persuade them to leave being the No1 in their organisation and come into a group/matrix structure.
From a skills perspective, striking the right balance between the leadership characteristics required alongside the ability to drive innovation (change leadership) and help Walgreens make the right technology choices (technical) while also being a great culture fit (values).
The Digital Board Process
From the very first call our aim is to set up as many stakeholder briefing calls as possible in order to develop a rounded understanding of the challenge and the profile we are looking for. Following these initial conversations, we brief our research team. Their process starts with defining our target list. In doing this, they needed to address a number of key elements:
Complexity and scale – this is a business with over 10,000 retail stores across NA with technology fueling over $100b of revenues.
Focus on consumer – we were only targeting profiles from large “direct to consumer” organisations (past or present) that had a proven track record of bringing technology to the front of the core of their business.
We needed a team player – this was not a “fly solo” – therefore we needed to carefully assess people’s ability to influence, and effect change without all the control buttons.
We developed a list of 60 potential candidates, eventually reaching out to 35 of them to gauge their interest and suitability. We then began the first stage of Digital Board qualifications, holding -45minute calls with thirteen candidates in order to assess: (1) reasons for interest, (2) fit to brief, (3) key achievements, (4) culture alignment and beyond.
Next, we worked with one of our Strategic Advisors to The Digital Board who carried out a deep-technical assessment, exploring their experience in managing effective governance, influencing technology choices and bringing people with them en route.
Nine of these candidates progressed to formal interviews. From there they met Bryan (our CEO and Founder) who has been working with the Group leadership team of WBA for over 10 years. He conducted a deep-dive leadership and culture assessment, using our proprietary leadership diagnostic tool.
In addition to the external candidates, Bryan interviewed three internal candidates for the role and made his shortlist recommendations to the stakeholder group. Throughout the whole process, our research team continued to work on generating new candidates just in case anything went wrong with our shortlist.
Success Story
The client responded extremely positively to the shortlisted candidates, with a key stakeholder in the organisation commenting that “he could hire anyone of them!” The successful candidate had been in talks with another company, but they felt a stronger connection with the interviewers and with the role, which prompted them to accept the offer.
They brought strong and relevant enterprise architecture experience to the role, from spells at leading companies in the healthcare, consulting and consumer goods industries. They boasted an impressive blend of commercial awareness and technical expertise, in addition to a knack for breaking down complex technical concepts with clarity for stakeholders and a reputation for innovating.