Business Chief USA July 2019

workers on lunch breaks. “The makeup
of the product selection is focused
on what customers need versus only
what we want to sell them,” she says.
“It differentiates us from some of our
big box competitors.”
Bartell’s also adapts its instore
experience so all feel welcome. “There
was a conscious decision made
to have shorter fixtures in all stores.
With a lower profile, our stores feel
“I got very good at
finding my way,
and finding things
about myself that
integrate well into
new situations”
—
Kari Escobedo,
IT, Bartell Drugs
EXECUTIVE PROFILE
Kari Escobedo, SVP, IT
Kari Escobedo is a business executive with 20+ years of leadership
experience serving global F500 companies in technology,
healthcare, telecoms, and retail. She is a change leader specializing
in company technology transformations, including digital
experience, product dev, and M&A. Kari joined Bartell Drugs in
mid-2018 to help positively impact the company thru technology.
Prior to Bartell Drugs, Kari joined Kaiser Permanente 2015
leading the Ent & Digital Services areas that include UX/CX,
Digital & Mobile for KPWA. Formerly VP, Ent Sys Dev for
T-Mobile, Kari led the technology team responsible
for the development and delivery of solutions for the
Customer Retail & Enterprise Systems that supported
the T-Mobile business transformation. Before joining
T-Mobile, Kari was the Director of Information
Management and CISO for Starbucks as well as teams
that supported ERP, Employee Portal systems.
Before Starbucks, Kari held leadership positions
at Microsoft, running it’s Enterprise Systems teams.
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