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The maestro of Rite Aid's recovery: Mary Sammons has done more than just help save Rite Aid from bankruptcy; she has orchestrated collaborative efforts that have transformed the retailer into a leading performer in the drug chain sector.

Article Excerpt
Sitting in her office overlooking downtown Harrisburg, PA, Mary Sammons, the 57-year-old president and ceo of Rite Aid, deflects the praise that has come her way for leading the financial turnaround of the nation's third largest drug store chain.

"What's often taken for granted is that one of the keys to our success is our entire team coming together," says Sammons, who came to Rite Aid with fellow Fred Meyer executive Bob Miller in December 1999 to lead the rescue of the ailing drug store retain. "Bob Miller, John Standley (cfo) and Dave Jessick (Rite Aid's former chief administrative officer who also joined the company from Fred Meyer) worked on the balance sheet issues and improving our banking relationships. I could locus my time on running the business. It really was a team effort across the company."

At the time Sammons joined the company, Rite Aid's previous management had been forced out due to burgeoning debt and a financial restatement that touched off a federal criminal investigation. Vendor relations were poor, with many suppliers complaining about excessive chargebacks (former ceo Martin Grass plead out to an eight-year prison term for conspiring to inflate income by $1.8 billion).

Miller immediately took charge of Rite Aid's financial restructuring, refinancing Rite Aid's debt ahead of schedule. Last June, he handed the reins to Sammons, his carefully groomed successor. But, prior to that, Miller would not have been able to complete his mission so successfully if Sammons had not delivered improved results from the stores.

For 2003, Sammons wins Retail Merchandiser's Retail Executive of the Year for orchestrating and sustaining one of the most fascinating turnarounds in retailing. In its third quarter, ending in mid-December 2003, Rite Aid turned a $16.4 million loss into a $22.5 million proft--the first operating profit reported since the new team arrived.

"There is a reason that Mary is the first drug store executive who has been named Retail Executive of the Year," says NACDS president Craig Fuller. "She has applied the same intensity, leadership and sense of cooperation to one of America's largest retail chains that she has shown in her commitment to addressing the issues facing our country's pharmacists and the community drug stores. NACDS congratulates her on this honor."

Among the keys to Sammons' success was creating cross-functional teams within the company and fostering a spirit of collaboration both within the company and outside with key suppliers.

Wall Street certainly noticed the changes. Rite Aid's stock price climbed from $2.17 per share on March 12, 2003, to $6.40 per share by December 8.

"Not bad for a company that was once the object of one of the country's most serious financial accounting scandals, and not bad fur a company still pouring out $300 million a year in interest expense," comments Richard Hastings, chief retail analyst for Bernard Sands. "Mary Sammons clearly led the...