Walgreens Expands Leadership, Names Peters, Rauch, Visalatha to the Retail Products and Customer Team
Walgreens is bolstering its retail products and customer leadership team, announcing three new key appointments.
Linh Peters has been named senior vice president and chief marketing officer; Luke Rauch is now senior vice president and chief merchandising officer; and Bala Visalatha has been named senior vice president and chief product officer.
Tracey Brown, president of retail products and chief customer officer at Walgreens, stated that these new hires have “an excellent track record when it comes to successfully identifying white spaces across different customer touchpoints and tracking evolving consumer trends, which will be instrumental as we transform our business.”
[Read more: Walgreens Boots Named in Top 100 Retailers for 2022]
“I am thrilled to have Linh, Luke and Bala join the Walgreens retail products and customer leadership team, and I’m confident that their collective decades of retail expertise and deep involvement with launching new customer experiences will accelerate growth in our company,” she added.
Linh Peters
As the company’s chief marketing officer, Peters will lead Walgreens’ vision, strategic direction, and marketing performance across brand design and positioning and marketing plan execution.
Previously the chief marketing officer at Calvin Klein, Peters has more than 20 years of experience, also building consumer engagement and loyalty on a global scale for brands like Starbucks, Target, and Ulta Beauty.
Peters said Walgreens has an opportunity to help millions of customers and patients transform their lives.
“Throughout my career, I’ve worked collaboratively and cross-functionally to bring a laser focus on the customer experience to everything we do, and I look forward to building upon the great momentum we’ve created over the past several years.”
Luke Rauch
As chief merchandising officer, Rauch will manage the company’s strategic direction and vision for all of Walgreens’ merchandising activities.
He previously served as chief of staff to Roz Brewer, CEO and vice president of Walgreens’ Boots Alliance. Additionally, he also led the owned brands strategy in the U.S. and helped to define Walgreens’ retail consumer experience.
Rauch previously held roles such as vice president, commercial strategy, senior director of insights at Walgreens. Prior to Walgreens, Rauch worked for Deloitte’s strategy practice.
“I am honored to rejoin the Walgreens merchandising organization and look forward to working with the team as we continue to fulfill our purpose of more joyful lives through better health,” said Rauch.
He added that Walgreens plays a critical role in communities, and he is committed to building on the team’s momentum, while looking for new ways to best serve customers and patients.
Bala Visalatha
Visalatha will take on the newly created role of chief product officer, leading the company’s execution of its customer product strategy and development, as well as user experience.
In the role, Visalatha will ensure product solutions across product lines and functions are aligned to the company’s customer strategy. Working cross-functionally, the role will focus on research, analysis and the entire customer product lifecycle.
Most recently, Visalatha was vice president of e-commerce at Walmart U.S., where he helped launch the new Walmart app and website — a more unified omnichannel experience for consumers.
Visalatha has more than 15 years of experience in leading and building products to drive transformation with consumer brands like Walmart, Sam’s Club, and American Express.
“Walgreens plays such a pivotal role in communities nationwide and it’s exciting to join at a time in which the business is rapidly evolving and transforming,” Visalatha said. “I look forward to leveraging data and technology to evolve and redefine the customer experience at Walgreens alongside the highly talented team across the country.”
