Deidra (Dee) Merriwether is the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of W.W. Grainger, Inc., a $17.9 billion leading broad line distributor with operations primarily in North America and Japan. She oversees the company’s financial activities, including controllership, treasury, financial analysis, investor relations, internal audit, tax and financial operations. She is also responsible for Grainger’s corporate analytics, real estate and indirect procurement.
Before becoming CFO in 2021, Dee served as Senior Vice President and President, North American Sales and Services, responsible for sales, inventory management solutions and customer engagement strategies in Canada, Latin America and the United States. Since joining Grainger in 2013, she has served in senior leadership positions across pricing, sales, field operations and indirect procurement—delivering customer results and consistent top-quartile performance for the company.
Dee is an accomplished leader with more than two decades of broad management, operations and financial experience. She started her career as an engineer and production leader at Eli Lilly and gained valuable accounting and M&A experience at PricewaterhouseCoopers. She then held roles of increasing responsibility in general management and finance at Sears Holdings, departing as Chief Operating Officer in 2013.
Dee earned an MBA in finance and operations management from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from North Carolina A&T State University. She is also a graduate of the Executive Accounting Program at the University of Texas and a fellow of the CEO Perspectives and CFO Leadership programs at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and the Harvard Business School, respectively.
Dee currently serves on the boards of Weyerhaeuser Company, Ravinia Festival and The Chicago Network, and is vice chair of the North Carolina A&T Aggie Athletic Foundation.
For more information, visit invest.grainger.com.