Welcome back, MPW Daily readers. I hope you had a restorative holiday season, with the chance to slow down and reflect. As I was doing my own reflecting on 2025, one moment stood out to me. It was one of my favorite moments of the year in MPW—and an inspiring note to enter 2026 on.
At the Most Powerful Women Summit in October, I moderated an off-the-record conversation about “life after the big job” with three former CEOs, including Karen Lynch of CVS Health and Roz Brewer of Walgreens. Those jobs pitted the two against each other as fierce competitors, fighting for market share of the U.S. drugstore market, pharmacy, walk-in health care, and vaccines. Yet you’d never know it from the camaraderie and friendship between the two, who now share an experience few others can fully understand.
As CEO of CVS Health, Lynch led the largest business ever led by a female CEO. Brewer was one of just a handful of Black women to ever lead a Fortune 500 company. And, between the two of them, they successfully vaccinated nearly the entire United States against COVID.
Lynch’s tenure as CVS Health’s CEO started on Feb. 1, 2021, and she was thrust into rolling out the first COVID vaccine at CVS locations nationwide, with a staff of 50,000 immunizers at the time. She was promoted from within the company, and was involved in the company’s COVID vaccine rollout from its earliest days, even before then. It was a small part of her business strategy, but an enormously consequential job for the safety and health of the country. Brewer’s CEO tenure at Walgreens spanned March 2021 to 2023, and coming from outside health care, she immediately tackled one of the industry’s most significant challenges.
Years later, the pair sat next to each other onstage and reflected on how remarkable it is that, as competitors, they protected Americans from COVID, together. They even high-fived over the achievement—with a note of surprise, as if they were realizing, ‘Wow, we actually did that.’
It was a moment that reminded me how important it is to slow down and reflect on our achievements. These are two high-powered executives, who were so used to being judged on quarterly results and turnaround strategies, and are now figuring out what comes next in their own lives and careers.
So be like Karen and Roz! Take a moment to appreciate all you’ve achieved. High-five your friend, your competitor, yourself. And before you set another goal, take a deep breath as we enter 2026—you’ve got this.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
Delcy Rodriguez is at the center of upheaval in Venezuela. The vice president is the de facto leader of the country after U.S. seizure of President Nicolás Maduro—although President Trump says the U.S. will "run the country." Time
Meanwhile, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum opposes the intervention. "The sovereignty and self-determination of peoples are non-negotiable," she said, and the American continent doesn't belong to any one superpower. She says she's not worried about Trump's threat to send the U.S. military into Mexico. Bloomberg
Sen. Amy Klobuchar might run for governor of Minnesota. After Gov. Tim Walz dropped his bid for a third term amid a welfare fraud scandal. WSJ
Surrogacy is leaving women in debt. When pregnancies don't go as planned and medical costs mount, women who sign on as surrogates can be left owing hundreds of thousands of dollars. WSJ
ON MY RADAR
Kara Swisher on the blind spot that broke Big Tech Bloomberg
How Taylor Swift's engagement ring is changing the diamond game New Yorker
NPR's CEO was a right-wing target. Then the real trouble started NYT
PARTING WORDS
"There aren’t many brilliantly written comedic roles that come along like this, especially now, at my age. It came at a time in my life where I felt ready to really sink my teeth into it."
— Jane Krakowski on her starring turn in Broadway's Oh, Mary!
