Dive Brief:

• Tilak Mandadi will join the CVS Health executive leadership team as EVP and chief data, digital and technology officer, the company announced Friday. In his role at CVS, effective July 25, Mandadi will report directly to President and CEO Karen Lynch.
• The addition of Mandadi is intended to unify CVS’s technology leadership, which is currently spread across CIO Roshan Navagamuwa, CISO Chandra McMahon, VP of Digital Engineering Yogesh Bhagat and SVP of Digital Products, UX and Operations Tracey Weber.
• Mandadi’s appointment comes as CVS has shifted focus to online and ramped up modernization efforts. The company recently committed to $3 billion in customer-facing digital enhancements in advance of plans to close 900 retail locations over the next three years.

Dive Insight:

The pharmacy business, like so much of the consumer economy, is increasingly an online enterprise in need of strong technology leadership. CVS signaled its embrace of this trend over the past year by investing in modernization while moving to close retail locations.

One-third of the 300 stores marked for closure this year had been shuttered as of the company’s May Q1 2022 earnings call. In that same quarter, CVS served nearly 44 million unique digital customers, an increase from the previous quarter of over 7 million customers, according to Lynch.

Mandadi, who comes to CVS after spending one year as chief strategy, innovation and technology officer at MGM Resorts, joins the pharmacy chain amid further commitment to digital strategy and UX for the company's growing online consumer base. 

Mandadi will be taking the lead on efforts to integrate the company’s various tech functions and lend additional strategic vision to CVS’s consumer-centered modernization efforts. His appointment represents an effort to integrate the company’s various tech functions and to guide further investment in UX technologies, data analytics, and ML/AI innovations.

Mandadi’s background is in the hospitality and recreation sector. Prior to his year with MGM Resorts, Mandadi served as EVP and digital and global chief technology officer for Disney Parks, Experience and Products and as SVP for global digital, consumer travel and M&A technology at American Express.

CVS declined further comment on the implications of the hire, but Lynch told The Wall Street Journal that the chief data, digital and technology officer position was created to break down silos on the tech side of the company.

The role of Navagamuwa, who was promoted to CIO in 2019, is not expected to change significantly in the short term, Lynch told the Wall Street Journal. But the CIOs oversight, along with the scope of other executives on CVS’s tech leadership team, are likely to evolve as Mandadi settles into his tenure and puts his imprint on the company’s digital strategy.