Walgreens' VP U.S. merchandising leaves company

DEERFIELD, Ill. — Drug Store News has learned that Bryan Pugh, Walgreens VP U.S. merchandising, program development and execution, has left the company as of last week. 

 

Walgreens released the following statement regarding his departure: "Bryan has been a respected and committed executive of the company for the past six years, and we want to thank him for all he’s done to enable our front-end strategy during that time. As our business strategy has evolved, we all agreed it was the right time for Bryan to look for other opportunities. He is highly thought of by his colleagues at Walgreens, the supplier community and the entire industry, and we wish him all the best." 

 

Pugh had been named corporate VP of U.S. merchandising program development and execution in August of 2013. As Walgreens expanded transformational merchandise programs and executed joint merchandise initiatives with Alliance Boots across beauty, personal care, health and wellness, Pugh’s role helped bridge operations and merchandising functions and oversaw rollout of new merchandising initiatives to the field, including operating standards, cross-functional deployment and flagship rollout.



Earlier last year, Pugh assumed the merchandising reigns in the wake of Joe Magnacca's move to RadioShack. He came to Walgreens in 2009 from Tesco's Fresh and Easy USA where he was COO and SVP operations. He also has experience working in big-box retail and club.

 

When putting together an exclusive feature on Walgreens in 2012, Drug Store News had the opportunity to explore in-depth Pugh's thoughts on merchandising: "You’ve got to skate to where the puck is going, not to where it’s been,” he told Drug Store News.