Rite Aid appoints legal chief

NYSE-listed Rite Aid has hired Thomas Sabatino as executive vice president and chief legal officer (CLO).

In his new role, Sabatino oversees the pharmacy chain’s legal affairs, including enterprise risk management, compliance, regulatory affairs and privacy issues. He reports to Busy Burr, interim CEO of Rite Aid, and is a member of the company's executive leadership team.

Sabatino most recently was executive vice president and general counsel at Tenneco. According to his LinkedIn profile, before that he was executive vice president and general counsel at Aetna and previously senior executive vice president, chief administrative officer and general counsel at Hertz.

Ahead of his time with Hertz, Sabatino spent more than three years at Walgreens, first as executive vice president, general counsel and secretary and later as executive vice president, chief legal and administrative officer and corporate secretary. Earlier in his career he spent time as executive vice president, general counsel and secretary at United Airlines, executive vice president and general counsel at Schering-Plough and senior vice president and general counsel at Baxter.

Sabatino succeeds Paul Gilbert, who recently joined Summit BHC as CLO. Gilbert joined Rite Aid in an interim position on May 21, 2020 to help with its virtual AGM – the company, like hundreds of others, switched from holding its AGM in person due to health and safety considerations arising from the Covid-19 pandemic – and other governance matters. He became general counsel and corporate secretary later that year before becoming executive vice president, CLO and secretary.

Burr says in a statement: ‘As we continue to accelerate our performance and grow our capabilities, we are pleased to welcome Tom to the Rite Aid team. We believe [his] proven leadership and extensive background in the healthcare industry and company transformations will help us further our mission to provide whole health for life to all of our customers.’