DEERFIELD, Ill. — Over the course of a 23-plus-year career at Walgreens, Heather Hughes has demonstrated an extraordinary range of talents that have enabled her to easily move across different areas of the business.

Hughes joined Walgreens in 2000 as a pharmacist and within a few months moved up to pharmacy manager. In 2007, though, Hughes changed directions, moving into merchandising as category manager for the baby, sanitary, feminine hygiene and condom categories. Among her responsibilities were the creation of mentoring initiatives and training programs for merchandising assistants and associate category managers.

Since then Hughes has moved up steadily through a succession of merchandising leadership roles of increasing responsibility in categories that span the front end, from baby care to seasonal and general merchandise to beauty and personal care. Not surprisingly, she has utilized her pharmaceutical expertise to bring a unique perspective to her merchandising work, which has included leading a number of transformative initiatives Walgreens.

More recently, she was promoted to her current position as group vice president and general merchandise manager of health, wellness, beauty and personal care — a position for which she seems to have been destined from the beginning.

Heather Hughes

“From the early stages of my career I recognized the synergies between beauty/personal care and wellness,” she said in a recent interview. “Understanding the strong connection between skin health and overall well-being, I’ve been able to play a pivotal role in curating product assortments that empower our customers and patients to care for their skin and treat it as a gateway to holistic health.”

Throughout her career, Hughes has consistently championed the importance of health and wellness, and she is enthusiastic about the opportunity to bring that business closer to beauty and personal care. But perhaps none of her accomplishments evokes more pride than establishing and growing Walgreens’ partnership with Vitamin Angels.

“Over the past 10 years I’ve led initiatives to provide essential vitamins to pregnant individuals and young children in underserved communities across all 50 U.S. states, Puerto Rico and globally, ultimately reaching over 400 million women and children,” she pointed out. “I was the divisional merchandise manager during the launch of Vitamin Angels, and achieved the first big milestone of reaching 100 million children.”

Hughes attributes much of her growth as a leader to superb mentors, including her volleyball coach at Butler University, Sharon Dingman, and Richard Ashworth, former president of Walgreens. Now, in her current role, she derives the greatest satisfaction from being able to carry forward their practices in her own mentoring activities.

“Beyond being a professional obligation, it’s a passionate pursuit fueled by the belief in the potential of others,” she said.