Walmart Executive Shake Up: Retailer Moves To Integrate Its Store And Digital Teams

Amid a series of corporate layoffs, Walmart (WMT) is continuing to shake up its organization with some key changes to its executive team.

According to a memo from Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, obtained by CNBC, the retailer is looking to create a “seamless Walmart experience” for its customers. The memo indicates that the company is looking to integrate its store and digital business operations with new leadership at the helm to oversee the integration.

“Our customers want one, seamless Walmart experience,” McMillon wrote to employees in the memo. “Earning more of our customers’ business in food and consumables is foundational to our strategy, and, at the same time, we will expand our ability to serve them with general merchandise in stores and through our broad ecommerce assortment as we continue to invest and build our ecommerce business.”

The reason for the integration, according to McMillion, is to “enable focus and speed. Our ecommerce sales growth, improving customer metrics and progress on contribution profit are encouraging, and we want to keep that going.”

McMillion’s memo outlined how it plans to combine its U.S. supply chain teams, which will now be head by Greg Smith, who is the current executive vice president of the company's U.S. supply chain. Moving up the hierarchy, Smith will report to Greg Foran and Marc Lore. Lore oversees Walmart’s U.S. e-commerce operations while Foran heads the company’s U.S. stores.

Nate Faust is also reportedly moving to a new position that has not yet been named. In the interim, he will have responsibility for the integration of Walmart’s leadership teams. Faust current leads the retailer’s e-commerce fulfillment. He joined the company in 2016 as part of Walmart’s Jet.com purchase, CNBC reported.

Suresh Kumar was named to the role of chief technology officer in May while Janey Whiteside will serve as chief customer officer, a new position within the company. Whiteside joins Walmart’s service and digital acceleration team, which will be headed by Daniel Eckert; as well as the returns team led by Linne Fulcher and the media group, helmed by Stef Jay. Whiteside will report to Foran and Lore.

Whiteside will also have some positions to fill as the chief experience and strategy officer, chief product officer, and leader for the customer care team roles are reportedly open.

Other executive changes at the company fall under Walmart’s finance department, which will not integrate the store and e-commerce teams into one. Michael Dastugue will lead the newly integrated finance team as U.S. chief financial officer, reporting to Brett Biggs. Steve Schmitt, who is the Sam’s Club chief financial officer, will move to the position of U.S. e-commerce financial officer and report to Dastugue.

Ashley Buchanan will also move from executive vice president at Walmart and chief merchandising officer at Sam’s Clue to the chief merchandising officer for U.S. e-commerce. She will report to Lore. Andy Dunn, who oversaw the acquisitions of Eloquii, Modcloth, and other brands, will now report to Buchanan.

Shares of Walmart stock were down 0.31 percent as of 11:46 pm. ET on Monday.