Walgreens adds seasoned technology, sustainability vet to board

DEERFIELD, Ill. — Walgreens on Tuesday evening elected Jan Babiak, a retired managing partner for Ernst & Young, to its board of directors. Babiak, who joins the board as an independent director, becomes the board’s 12th member.



“Jan’s diverse combination of leadership roles will provide us with additional financial insight and background on a wide range of strategic and business initiatives,” Walgreens chairman Alan McNally said. “Her experience serving numerous global business organizations will help to further accelerate our strategies and bring added expertise to our efforts, especially in the critical areas of IT transformation, as well as sustainability and climate change.”



“With her highly-regarded experience in IT, sustainability, audit and public policy, Jan will be a tremendous resource to our board and our company," Walgreens president and CEO Greg Wasson said. "She brings an innovator’s perspective that will be valuable in our transformation to a health and daily living destination, and her commitment to diversity initiatives and active career mentoring of men and women also will be extremely important in the years ahead.”



Babiak has nearly 30 years of global management and board level experience. At Ernst & Young, she held managing partner and board level roles in the areas of technology, climate change and sustainability, and regulatory and public policy. She served in consulting, audit and assurance roles for a broad range of clients in the financial services, technology, energy, media, transportation, government, retail and other sectors.



Babiak was founder and managing partner of Ernst & Young’s fastest-growing and most profitable U.K. practice, which provided IT security, transformation, program management and advisory and assurance services. With full P&L and operational responsibility, she grew the technology security and risk services practice in the United Kingdom, later adding Northern Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (NEMIA), for more than 10 years while also serving on Ernst & Young’s U.K. operating board.



Babiak was appointed in 2006 to the NEMIA executive management board and as managing partner for regulatory and public policy in NEMIA, and was the board level sponsor leading all services related to climate change and sustainability across the NEMIA area.



In 2008, she created a new practice as Ernst & Young’s global leader for climate change and sustainability services, operating from the firm’s London headquarters. She was responsible for the strategy and delivery of commercially focused climate change transformation and sustainability services to clients, as well as providing coordination with government offices, regulatory bodies, national professional bodies and other stakeholders. She has led teams delivering advisory, assurance, tax and transaction services focused on clean tech, renewable energy, carbon trading, environmental policy and taxation, green building, green supply chain, carbon measurement and modeling.



Babiak joined Ernst & Young’s audit practice in Oklahoma City in 1982 after earning her bachelors of business administration degree from the University of Oklahoma that same year. She later earned an MBA from Baldwin Wallace College in Ohio in 1989.



After retiring from a 28-year career with Ernst & Young in 2009, she became an independent board member the following year for Logica, an FTSE 250 publicly-traded technology company headquartered in the United Kingdom, where she is audit committee chair. In 2011, she joined the governing body of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales as a council member.