Walgreens Boots Alliance has named Vineet Mehra as global chief marketing officer, effective at the end of January.
Mehra most recently has been global CMO of Ancestry, joining the geneology and DNA-testing business in 2017. He brought on Droga5 the same year, launching a new campaign that focused on the common ancestry of most Americans, including a July 2017 spot that invited a diverse group of descendants of the Founding Fathers to read the Declaration of Independence.
Earlier this year, Droga5 resigned the business, and Ancestry recently named Anomaly to handle work outside the U.S., with J. Walter Thompson (now Wunderman Thompson) creating Ancestry's recent Veteran's Day spot for the U.S. Omnicom's OMD handles Ancestry media.
WPP won the Walgreens Boots Alliance global advertising account in early 2017, with Team WBA, a bespoke selection of WPP agencies, handling all marketing and communications for retail, wholesale, health and beauty.
Before Ancestry, Mehra was global president of baby care and president-global marketing services at Johnson & Johnson. He's also held global marketing positions at Avon, Novartis Consumer Health, General Mills and Procter & Gamble Co. He was named one of Ad Age's 40 Under 40 earlier this year.
Mehra will be based at Walgreens Boots Alliance's corporate headquarters in Deerfield, Ill., reporting to co-chief operating officers Ornella Barra and Alex Gourlay.
