DSN Women Leaders 2014: Helena Foulkes, CVS/pharmacy

If she could go back in time and talk to a younger Helena Foulkes, just getting started in her career — there’s just two words she would have for her: “Chill out.” 

Looking back on business school, Foulkes remembers the pressure she felt, wondering if work-life balance was something that was truly achievable for a woman who wanted both a successful career and a family. “I spent a lot of time worrying about that,” she said. “I think I could have chilled out a little bit about it. I’ve learned that those kinds of things in life are the things you don’t spend too much time overanalyzing; you just do them, and things tend to work out.”

Foulkes credits her mom and dad as having had the greatest influence on her life and career. Although her mother never had a career of her own, Foulkes describes her as “sort of a feminist who really wanted the girls in her life to have strength and power,” she said. Among the important lessons she learned from her father — who ran a small fertilizer company dealing mostly with farmers — perhaps the most lasting was around the responsibility that comes with leadership beyond just running the business and writing the checks.

“We think about weather when it hits our stores,” she explained. “But in my father’s business, there were six weeks when the farmers planted their crops and put their fertilizer down, and if the weather was bad, you’d miss the whole year. I remember a couple of years when it was really devastating for him. I really appreciated from him the responsibility the leader of a company has, because it wasn’t just whether he personally would be successful, but he felt responsible for the people who worked for him.”

To view the full DSN Women Leaders 2014 report, click here.