During her time at the helm of CVS Health, former chief executive Karen Lynch often placed her complicated family history at the center of her argument for why she wanted to reinvent her company — and with it the way that health care is delivered in America.
Lynch regularly told the story of her traumatic youth with a vulnerability uncharacteristic of most corporate leaders. Her mother’s suicide and the death of her aunt from cancer shaped her life. She hoped sharing their stories would help drive home the vision behind her push to make CVS a single point of care for patients whose full needs might otherwise go unmet. With better care, Lynch said, both women may have lived longer.
The other story, of Lynch’s rise from her childhood in Ware to the corner office of one of the nation’s largest companies, ended this week, with her ouster after three years as CEO. The task of building the company she envisioned, it turned out, was as difficult as the narrative she built around her rise.
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