The most powerful Black women of 2021

2. Rosalind Brewer

Rosalind Brewer came in second as the most powerful Black woman in the world and 17 on the Forbes list. She is the first woman and first African American to serve as COO of Starbucks. She recently became the only Black woman leading a Fortune 500 company, Walgreens.

Brewer has a career spanning over 25 years in multiple fields. Before joining Starbucks, she served as president and CEO of Sam’s Club, the eighth largest U.S. retailer with sales of $57 billion for the fiscal year 2016. The appointment made Brewer the first African American to lead a Walmart division.

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Brewer also worked with Kimberly-Clark Corp. for 22 years, beginning as a scientist and advancing to become vice president of the Global Nonwovens Sector in 2004. In 2017, she was nominated for the Starbucks Board of Directors and was named as COO in September of that year, making her the second highest-ranked executive at Starbucks.

Brewer grew up in Detroit, attended Cass Technical High School and Spelman College, where she obtained her bachelor’s degree in chemistry. She is also a graduate of the Director’s College at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business/Stanford Law School, and she also attended an advanced management program at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.