Walmart Leadership and Walmart Organizational Structure

By John Dudovskiy
March 29, 2016

Traditionally, Walmart leadership attempts to integrate the values of its founder Sam Walton into the organizational culture in order to improve employee morale with positive implications on the bottom line. In 1988 the roles of Chairman and CEO were separated and today these roles are performed by Gregory B. Penner and Doug McMillion respectively.

Doug McMillion has assumed Walmart leadership position in February 2014 and a range of initiatives introduce by the new CEO include enhancing the priority for customer services via employee training and development and increasing wages of floor-level employees and focusing on improving nutritional aspects of foods. Walmart leadership academy, instituted in 2009 aims to accelerate the preparedness of leaders and is modelled after the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst[1]

Walmartorganizational structure is highly hierarchical due to the massive size of the company. In other words, the company employs about 2.2 million people globally[2] and therefore, there is no alternative organizational structure for Walmart to ensure effective management of such a large number of employees.The Board of Directors consists 16 members and it includes two members of Walton family, as well as, young, but proven business executives such as Kevin Systrom, CEO and Co-Founder, Instagram and Marissa A. MayerPresident and CEO of Yahoo!, Inc.

Walmart organizational structure at the very top executive has a pattern as illustrated in Figure 1 below:

Walmart leadership Walmart organizatonal structure

Figure 1 Walmart organizational structure at top executive level

One step down the hierarchy form the above, Walmart executive team comprises 29 senior managers for the following roles:

  1. Executive Vice President and Treasurer
  2. Executive Vice President, Softlines and General Merchandise, Walmart U.S.
  3. Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs
  4. Chief Operating Officer, Global eCommerce
  5. Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
  6. Chief Merchandising Officer, Walmart U.S.
  7. Executive Vice President, Global People Division
  8. Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Walmart U.S.
  9. Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer
  10. Executive Vice President, Operations, Sam’s Club
  11. Executive Vice President-Merchandising, Sam’s Club
  12. Executive Vice President, Global Governance and Corporate Secretary
  13. Executive Vice President, Consumables and Health and Wellness and U.S. Manufacturing Lead
  14. Executive Vice President, Merchandising Operations, Walmart U.S.
  15. President and CEO, Samsclub.com
  16. Executive Vice President, Global Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer
  17. President and CEO, Walmart.com
  18. Chief Operating Officer, Walmart U.S.
  19. Executive Vice President, Supercenters – Walmart U.S.
  20. Executive Vice President, Neighbourhood Markets – Walmart U.S.
  21. Chief Administrative Officer – Walmart International; President and CEO, Walmart Asia
  22. Executive Vice President, Food, Walmart U.S.
  23. Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
  24. Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Walmart U.S.
  25. Executive Vice President, International People Division
  26. Executive Vice President, Logistics, Walmart U.S.
  27. Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer
  28. Senior Vice President and Controller
  29. Executive Vice President, Global Sourcing

Lastly, on operational level, Walmart organizational structure can be illustrated in the following manner:

Walmart leadership Walmart organizatonal structure

Figure 2 Walmart organizational structure at operational level

Walmart Stores Inc. Report constitutes a comprehensive analysis of Walmart business strategy. The report illustrates the application of the major analytical strategic frameworks in business studies such as SWOT, PESTEL, Porter’s Five Forces, Value Chain analysis and McKinsey 7S Model on Walmart. Moreover, the report contains analyses of Walmart’s marketing strategy and discusses the issues of corporate social responsibility.

Walmart Stores Inc. Report

[1] Wall Street Journal (2012) Available at: http://www.wsj.com/video/how-wal-mart-is-training-better-leaders/C819D2F6-AA21-4923-BA8B-9C9E5200C3ED.html

[2] Annual Report (2015) Walmart Stores Inc.

Category: Leadership
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