Heyward Donigan, Former CEO, Rite Aid
Heyward Donigan is a seasoned healthcare CEO and board member with broad general industry experience and a track record of profitable growth with both public and private companies.
Heyward is currently a strategic advisor to Vesey Street Capital Partners and Arima Health. Before that, Heyward was appointed Rite Aid’s president and chief executive officer in August 2019, making her one of the few women CEOs of a Fortune 500 company. While at Rite Aid, Heyward led the company to through a major brand, merchandise and technology transformation, debt reduction/refinancing, while also leading the company through a pandemic.
Before joining Rite Aid, Donigan was president and chief executive officer of Sapphire Digital, which designs and develops omnichannel platforms that help consumers choose their best fit healthcare providers. In that role, Donigan led Sapphire Digital’s strategy and operations to record growth and profits. Prior to Sapphire Digital, Donigan was president and chief executive officer of ValueOptions, then the nation’s largest independent behavioral health improvement company, where she drove innovation through disciplined execution and grew company revenues to over $1 billion.
Previously, Donigan served as executive vice president & chief marketing officer at Premera Blue Cross, where, she was responsible for driving profitable growth across the individual, small group, mid-market and national account businesses, and helped the company achieve record growth and profits. Earlier in her career, Donigan served as senior vice president of all operations at Cigna Healthcare. She has also held executive roles at General Electric, Empire BCBS and U.S. Healthcare.
Heyward previously served on the Board of Directors at several public companies, including Kindred Healthcare and NxStage Medical and is currently on the board of Inceptua, a leading provider of global clinical trial supplies.
Donigan holds a master’s of public administration from New York University. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Virginia.