Dive Brief:
- Stephen Gold, CIO of CVS Health Corp., resigned last week to "pursue professional opportunities outside of CVS Health," company spokesman Mike DeAngelis said to the Rhode Island Public Radio. The resignation was unrelated to the company's $69 billion acquisition of Aetna.
- Gold began his tenure at CVS in 2012 and oversaw the creation of an innovation lab, a data analytics-driven clinical advice engine and various digital tools, reports The Wall Street Journal.
- Until a new CIO is appointed, the company's IT will report to COO Jon Roberts, according to the WSJ.
Dive Insight:
Gold was known for his ACT — accountability, collaboration and tenacity — framework, which he used to create a collaborative and fully accountable IT organization in the retail and healthcare company.
Scaling CVS' technology was an imminent concern for Gold, who didn't want to get bogged down trying new technologies that wouldn't work across the company's entire operations.
By integrating Big Data and digital tools into the customer experience and feedback loop, CVS pushed its own competitors into the digital game. For example, Walgreens announced a partnership with IBM to integrate IBM Cloud and data analytics capabilities into the company's supply chain and store operations.
Gold's replacement will be an important one for CVS as the drugstore retailer tries to re-brand itself as more of a healthcare-focused company. That's especially true with players like Amazon considering entering the market, possibly with a Rite Aid acquisition, which itself failed to merge with Walgreens in June.
