Corporate Governance

Seattle – Starbucks Coffee Company is opening its 500th location featuring Clover brewing, with plans to double the number of Clover locations globally by the end of 2014. Starbucks has offered its Starbucks Reserve coffees, a line of rare and exotic small batch single origin coffees brewed with the single-cup Clover system, since 2010.

Deerfield Park, Ill. – Walgreens is shaking up its Daily Living organization by shuffling the roster of key marketing and merchandising executives. These promotions and appointments, effective Oct. 1, accompany the appointment of Alex Gourlay, chief executive of Alliance Boots Health and Beauty Division, as Walgreens executive VP, president of customer experience and daily living.

Deborah Cavanagh has joined women’s specialty retailer Coldwater Creek as SVP and chief marketing officer after serving in a similar capacity at the LOFT division of Ann Taylor.

Cavanagh will join the company September 16 and lead multi-channel brand marketing and creative services, reporting directly to Coldwater Creek president and CEO Jill Dean. Her appointment follows the release of disappointing first quarter results that saw same store sales at the operator of 347 stores decline 10.5%

By Karen Lowe, [email protected]

LOS ANGELES — Virtual Piggy initiated a consumer acquisition campaign to start building its subscriber base. Throughout the past four months, Virtual Piggy has added more than 400,000 new accounts most of which are based in the U.S. and some which were recently added in Canada.  

New York -- Canadian home-improvement retailer Rona reported a loss of $136.5 million for the second quarter, compared with a profit of $36.9 million a year earlier, hurt by restructuring costs and tightened market conditions.

According to a report by Reuters, Rona revenue fell 4.6% to $1.21 billion, and same-store sales dipped 1%. Analysts expected revenue of $1.35 billion.

DEERFIELD, Ill. — July sales at Walgreens experienced an 8% boost. They totaled $6.03 billion, up from $5.59 billion for the same month in fiscal 2012. 

Comparable-store sales increased by 6.3% in July. Calendar day shifts positively impacted total comparable sales by 1.4 percentage points, while generic drug introductions in the last 12 months negatively impacted total comparable sales by 1.8 percentage points.

BOSTON, Mass. — Brand Networks, a leading integrated social software solutions and digital marketing services provider, has made additions to its executive team as part of the company’s strategy to accelerate expansion.