Democratic gubernatorial candidate Helena Foulkes visited Warren on the evening of Monday, April 4, sharing her backstory and answering questions at a meeting of the Democratic Town Committee.
The Providence native is the oldest of five children (“A big, glorious family,” she said.) A mother of four whose husband teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design, Foulkes returned to Providence after college and began her career at CVS. It was to be her professional home for most of her career (to date) and is was where she would develop the executive leadership skills that she says qualify her to serve as the chief executive of our state.
“My story really is that I grew up in the business world,” she said. “I came back from school and started working at CVS in 1992. My first job at CVS, I was actually in charge of figuring out how to fit all the Christmas merchandise across all our 1,400 stores. It’s not a sexy as it sounds,” she added, to laughter from the gathered audience. “But it was a great experience.”
During the course of her tenure at CVS she helped steer the company from its beginnings as a pharmaceutical retail chain to its position today as a major health care company. Her commitment to her work as a national health care leader was brought into focus early on in her career.
“I had four children very quickly — four kids in four and a half years,” she said. “And when my youngest was one and my oldest was five I got cancer and the thing that I realized in that experience was I was really lucky because I had health insurance…and I was working for a company that was great to me. So it created a real sense of loyalty to the company.”
Beyond her obvious success in helping lead CVS through substantial growth over the years, Foulkes’ leadership and business acumen worked hand-in-hand with her heart and ethics, most notably with one of her proudest accomplishments: getting cigarettes off the shelves of CVS stores nationwide.
Original source can be found here.
