What C-Suite additions and new board members at Walmart, Target signal about their priorities
In addition to new CEOs at Walmart and Target, both are getting other new leaders in the coming months: new additions to the C-suite at Walmart and new board members at Target.
These changes are a sign of what the retailers’ priorities may be under the new leadership of Walmart CEO John Furner and Target CEO Michael Fiddelke. Walmart appears to be firming up its technology and AI capabilities, while Target looks to be hoping to reestablish its dominance in design and apparel.
On Jan. 16, Walmart announced several changes to its C-suite, in effect beginning Feb 1. Seth Dallaire will move from chief growth officer of Walmart U.S. to chief growth officer for Walmart Inc. He’ll now oversee all of Walmart’s global enterprise platforms, from retail media networks Walmart Connect and Sam’s Club Member Access Platform to membership program Walmart+, as well as Walmart Data Ventures, Vizio and the third-party marketplace.
David Guggina, chief e-commerce officer of Walmart U.S., will become president and CEO of Walmart U.S. after growing the company’s delivery services to reach 95% of all U.S. households in less than three hours. Sam’s Club president and CEO Chris Nicholas will succeed Kath McLay, who is leaving the company, as president and CEO of Walmart International. And Latriece Watkins, Walmart U.S.’s chief merchandising officer, will become president and CEO of Sam’s Club U.S.
“These leadership changes also mark a key step in how we organize for the future. Even the best teams need the right structure to win,” Furner said in a news release. “As AI rapidly reshapes retail, we are centralizing our platforms to accelerate shared capabilities, freeing up our operating segments to be more focused on and closer to our customers and members.”
“They are preparing themselves to be able to meet the P&L challenges of the future by amplifying both their alternative revenue streams globally and their operational efficiencies in the U.S.,” said Bryan Gildenberg, founder and CEO of Confluencer Commerce. “I think they’ve realized that there is a scale advantage to AI investment that needs to be leveraged, and it’s probably not lost on Walmart’s management and board that their single biggest competitor [Amazon] … is hyper-scaling AI capabilities.”
Target, meanwhile, is expanding its board of directors with two prominent names in apparel and retail: former Nike chief innovation officer John Hoke III and former HanesBrands CEO Steve Bratspies, who previously served as Walmart’s chief merchandising officer until 2020. This comes after Fiddelke has said Target — as his first priority under his leadership — needs to “reclaim its merchandising authority” and that one of Target’s most critical attributes is having industry-leading style and design.
“As you’ve seen over the last few years, even when overall results have fallen short of our aspirations, we’ve shown how strongly our guests respond when we offer the right blend of quality, value and style not seen anywhere else in the market,” Fiddelke said last August.
Carol Spieckerman, a retail consultant and president of Spieckerman Retail, said, to her, this looks like an attempt by Target to not lose its style authority to Walmart. Walmart has been focused on catering to higher-income individuals and has seen large gains with that demographic over the last few years.
Target’s hiring of a former Walmart executive and a longtime Nike leader “shows that they’re really battening down the hatches, and they’re trying to bring in some serious firepower to turn the ship around,” Spieckerman said. “Target knows it desperately needs to recapture those higher-income, less price-sensitive shoppers — ones that, frankly, Walmart has obviously been stealing.”