Some quick facts about Helena Buonanno Foulkes: She is 57,president through May of the Harvard University Board of Overseers, granddaughter on her mother's side of the late U.S. Sen. Thomas J. Dodd, and niece of another U.S. A graduate of Henry Barnard School, Lincoln School, Harvard and Harvard Business School, Helena is President of CVS/pharmacy. She also serves on the executive committee, the committee on social sciences, and the advisory committee on honorary degrees. ", Jobs: "Lessening regulatory challenges that have inhibited growth in the past will transform Rhode Island into a state where companies want and need to do business. { Other governor candidate profiles, so far: On the political side, Foulkes' father worked on John Chafee's Senate campaign, was finance chairman for Sen. Claiborne Pell's 1990 reelection campaignand hosted a fundraiser for Donald Carcieri, whom he knew from their time together at Old Stone Bank. 2023 Fortune Media IP Limited. She supports, in concept, moving the country toward a single-payer health care system. [3] In July 2015, Fortune magazine reported that as part of her role, Foulkes oversaw 9,600 retail stores and 18 distribution centers. "The history of thecompany is it was put together by real estate investors andthey kept adding different businessesto it, and when Ijoined it was burning$1 billion every year," she said about Hudson's Bay. It specializes in developing and production of clinical-stage superior immune therapies for cancer patients and those with other kinds of incurable diseases. In particular, Foulkes has commented on the terrible state of the Hudsons Bay Companys digital operations, which makes sense when its website actually crashed for a couple of hours on Black Friday in 2017. How else will CVS look different in the next few years?The pharmacy will play a bigger role in health care. The U.S. shortage by 2020 of 45,000 primary care physicians, she explains, offers opportunities for CVS in-store medical clinics - MinuteClinics - to play a bigger role in health care; currently, they operate in more than two-dozen states. Then adds, And H.. It will be up to Foulkes to successfully integrate the new locations into CVS/pharmacy. The decision meant sacrificing about $2 billion in sales. PROVIDENCE Former CVS executive Helena Foulkes has jumped into the crowded Democratic race for Rhode Island governor. My mothers side is the Murphy family in Westerly. "Those aresignificantobstaclesfrom a campaigndefinitionstandpointand even if she canself-financehercampaign, between the two ofthemtheyhave alot of moneyalready,'' Schillersaid. Foulkesgraduatedmagna cum laudefrom Harvard College in 1986 and received her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1992. There was an opportunity for us to shift our model from just filling prescriptions as efficiently and productively as possible to providing services in the store that actually keep people on the medicines, Foulkes says. Foulkes moved to Narragansett in 2020 and is a member of the Dunes Club and Point Judith Country Club. Foulkes was an initial holdout when the other Democrats vying to become Rhode Island governor voluntarily made their own returns public to one extent or another in October. Registration closes Monday February 6 so sign up now! Foulkes will also need to stay on top of trends in a health care system that is changing quickly, particularly when it comes to the pharmacy business. He was a classmate at Brown and played squashwith future Gilbane CEOPaul Choquette. But the key letters are S, M, J, and C, says McEnany. Butdespite the close proximity to politicians, Foulkes said she didn't have much direct exposuregrowing up tocampaigning or any of the meat-and-potatoes of retail electioneering. Upon graduating, Foulkes spent some time working at both Goldman Sachs and Tiffany & Co before going back to her Alma mater to get a MBA. After graduation, Foulkes took a job in investment banking at Goldman Sachs (GS) in New York City but found that she wasnt captivated by the art of dealmaking. By 1992, Foulkes was working at CVS Health Corporation, where she managed to rise high in its ranks. Shehas served on the reunion gift committees of her College and HBS classes, as a Harvard College interviewer, and as an adviser to the HBS Health Care Initiative. Foulkes has been at the forefront of CVSs efforts to boost adherence. She wants to eliminate co-pays onmedication forchronic conditions, starting with diabetes andasthmaand eventually others, such as HIV. But on this sweltering summer day inside a plain-looking three-story building on the edge of the CVS corporate campus, Helena Foulkes (Most Powerful Women, No. Sen. Thomas Dodd of Connecticut was Foulkes' grandfather, and his son, Sen. Christopher Dodd, her uncle. [6], On February 5, 2018, Hudson's Bay Co., owner of Saks Fifth Avenue, named Foulkes its new CEO, saying it would be effective on February 19. Elections 2022 See also: Rhode Island gubernatorial election, 2022 General election Click here to read the survey answers. The changes are aimed at burnishing CVSs image as a health-oriented company. She is a member of the CEO Advisory Council for Salesforce. Suddenly Foulkes spots something that catches her interest: Christmas stockings that each have one big monogrammed letter on them. }; Foulkes' biggest pitchtoRhode Island voters is that if elected, she can turn around some of the state's beleaguered public schools. A 2012 study commissioned by CVS found that face-to-face interventions by pharmacists increased adherence rates by 3.9%. Atthe bowling alley, Foulkes, 58, canreach a different voter than theDemocrats on Blackstone Boulevard orOcean Road who are probably already familiar with her. The same year, the company teamed with Cardinal Health to create the largest U.S. generic-drug purchasing operation, Red Oak Sourcing. Powered and implemented by Interactive Data Managed Solutions. But its done plenty of things right too. It also has the power of consent to certain actions, such as the election of Corporation members. She is currently seeking the Democratic nomination for Governor of Rhode Island in the 2022 election and is the former Chief Executive Officer of Hudson's Bay Company. CVS. Signage where cigarettes used to be at a CVS store in New York City on Sept. 2, 2014. s.async = true; For those who are unfamiliar with her name, Helena Foulkes is the current CEO of the Hudsons Bay Company, which started out as a fur trading business in 1670 but has since turned into an operator of retail stores in Canada as well as other countries. It wasn't an easy time to join the EDC Board, which was responsible for managing the ill-fated 38 Studios deal approved under then-Governor Carcieri before she arrived. [11][12], In April, 2021, Harvard University announced that Foulkes would become president of the Harvard Board of Overseers, an alumni group that is the Universitys second-highest governing body. Updated: Oct 14, 2021 / 12:11 AM EDT. The Board of Overseers is one of Harvards two governing boards, along with the President and Fellows, also known as the Corporation. [1] She rose to become the company's executive vice president and chief marketing officer. 85, an entrepreneur, computer scientist, and former investment banker, and Beth Karlan 78, M.D. She lives in Rhode Island with her husband. In 2009 her mother died from lung cancer. The company ranked No. Helena Foulkes of CVS.Photograph by Joe Pugliese for Fortune Magazine. And that combined withthe financial might you'd expect from a former corporate CEO is the way Foulkeshopes to becomegovernor: a slow, steady, meticulous fight back in the pollsthat takes advantage of her persistence and the lack of any opponents who've broken away from the pack. You just take it one day at a time., That kind of practical approach has served Foulkes well, even as it helped lead her down a path she never would have imagined while growing up in Providencebuilding a career and life in her hometown. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. The YouGov Brand Index, which tracks consumer attitudes, has found that Walgreens regularly edges out CVSs drugstores. Today CVS likes to think of itself as a one-stop shop for health carewith the PBM and CVS/pharmacy working together in a virtuous circle. Instead of steel drums, he ran theOld Fox Fertilizer Co. of East Providence,which briefly competed with lawn-care giant Scott'sfertilizer in the 1980s. However, revenue from pharmacy benefit services rose 11.9%, and the company lined up $11 billion worth of new contracts in the PBM businessgains that CVS believes are a by-product of the companys improved reputation. My mom died of lung cancer and Im also a cancer survivor. In her office, Foulkes has a framed picture of herself with First Lady Michelle Obama from an event honoring CVSs tobacco exit. I remember somebody saying to me, So now do you think its a good idea? she says, laughing. 14) is having Christmas in July. Gov. He co-hosts Newsmakers and writes Nesi's Notes on . I remember when i found out I was having my fourth child, I was like, Oh, no! Foulkes is in a conference room fielding questions from summer interns with her usual candor, and a young man has just asked her about work-life balance. Tom Ryan, a onetime pharmacist who served as CEO at CVS from 1998 to 2011, was among the most aggressive players in the industrywide M&A spree, snatching up rivals such as Longs Drugs and Sav-On. including layoffs and the shuttering of Lord &Taylor department stores. "We pay more per capita than any nation in the country. [10], In March 2020, Foulkes announced that she was leaving Hudson's Bay Co. following a deal reached with shareholders to go private. I hope that by the time this article comes out, Rhode Island will have said okay to MinuteClinics.,