Good morning. This week will bring big changes to the largest company in the world, Walmart Inc. Feb. 1 will mark the retirement of Doug McMillon after a remarkable tenure and Day 1 for his replacement, John Furner. But the company is also enacting other changes to its C-suite that make one thing quite clear: Walmart, a 64-year-old retailer, now sees itself as a tech company.
Incoming Walmart U.S. CEO David Guggina, who is succeeding Furner atop the $500 billion domestic business, has no experience running stores and has never held a merchandising role, at Walmart or elsewhere. Such an appointment would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, before Walmart, under McMillon, decided to be a tech-forward company and not let Amazon run away with the prize.
But Guggina brings to his new role at Walmart another kind of experience that Walmart has been prioritizing for years: e-commerce, automation, and supply chain expertise gained at Walmart, and before that at Amazon. In announcing his promotion, Walmart touted Guggina’s work, among other things, in building delivery capabilities to serve 95% of U.S. households in under three hours.
Another area where Guggina has appealed to the Walmart brass: adoption of AI. “AI is changing how people shop, and customer expectations are higher than ever. But no one is more prepared to usher in the next era of retail,” Guggina wrote in a recent LinkedIn post.
Analysts consider Walmart to be well ahead of other retailers when it comes to AI-assisted shopping. In October, it announced a partnership with OpenAI to allow shoppers to browse and buy Walmart products directly inside ChatGPT. Last week, Walmart and Google announced their own shopping tool. Also last week, Walmart’s executive vice president for AI acceleration, product, and design, Daniel Danker, suggested at an investor conference that the company was developing auto-ordering for the replenishment of household staples.
Guggina isn’t the only tech executive whose star is rising at Walmart. The company also appointed Seth Dallaire chief growth officer for Walmart U.S., charging him with continuing to push Walmart beyond traditional retail into tech-heavy lines of business—including its booming advertising, media, and online marketplace ventures.
The timing of Guggina’s promotion was fitting: It came soon after Walmart moved its shares from the New York Stock Exchange to the tech-heavy Nasdaq exchange. In December, Walmart said the move underscores its “technology-forward approach.”
Bolstering Walmart’s tech and AI aura has had the additional benefit of lifting the company’s stock: In the last year, Walmart shares have risen 27%, double the S&P 500’s growth and trouncing Amazon.—Phil WahbaContact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at [email protected]
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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