He started at Walmart as a shelf stocker, and has now taken on the role of CEO

Walmart’s new chief executive, John Furner, started at the megaretailer as an hourly employee restocking shelves. Now, the largest company in the United States by revenue is betting on him to lead its next chapter.

Former CEO Doug McMillon announced his retirement in November after a decade at the helm of the No. 1 Fortune 500 company. His last day was January 31. Furner takes his place, after having served as president and CEO of Walmart’s operations in the United States.

Also read: Walmart CEO retires and gives advice: life is too short to hate your job

Furner, 51, began his career at Walmart in a garden center in the company’s headquarters, Bentonville, Arkansas, and will now have the mission of leading the company’s 2.1 million employees and the operations of almost 11,000 stores in 19 countries.

After studying marketing management at the University of Arkansas, Furner rose through the ranks at Walmart, rising from store manager to district manager and buyer, then serving on the corporate side as divisional general manager and vice president of global supply.

He also spent two years in Shenzhen, China, working at Walmart China and heading the merchandising and marketing areas.

Before taking charge of Walmart in the United States, Furner was CEO of Sam’s Club.

“John understands every dimension of our business — from the store floor to global strategy. He has proven that he can deliver results by living our values,” said Greg Penner, chairman of Walmart’s board of directors, in a statement.

In saying goodbye, McMillon also credited Furner with part of the company’s success, saying he has worked closely with him for 20 years.

“He loves this company and his colleagues, deeply understands our business and has the right characteristics to lead us into the future. He is a marketer, an operator, an innovator and a builder,” McMillon said in a LinkedIn post.

Furner’s investment in employees

In part because of his humble beginnings as a store employee, Furner during his time in leadership helped lead a major overhaul of the way Walmart pays its store managers. To increase morale and retention, the company began offering top-performing managers compensation packages of between $420,000 and $620,000 per year.

The base salary of these professionals was raised to the range between US$130,000 and US$160,000 — more than double the median annual salary of an American worker. The rest is made up of large stock grants and annual bonuses, which Furner said were intended to “make managers feel like owners.”

The company also resumed a bonus program for store employees. Some eligible employees can earn up to $1,000 per year from the program, depending on how long they have served, according to the company.

Even with artificial intelligence threatening jobs in several sectors, Furner said Walmart’s headcount is expected to remain stable over the next five years, even as workers become more productive. The positions that disappear will be replaced by new functions within the company, he added.

“We’re expanding people’s careers, and these jobs pay better. Turnover rates are very low,” Furner said during September’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Park City, Utah.

In part because of these changes, the company ranked among the top ten on Fortune’s list of the 2024 Best Large Companies to Work For in Retail.

Why Walmart chose John Furner as CEO

Part of Furner’s management philosophy may have been influenced by his family and early life experiences. As a child, working on the farm with his grandfather, Furner learned the value of hard work.

“I learned from him that animals don’t take Sundays, Saturdays or Wednesdays off,” he said, according to Fox News. “They’re always up. You wake up early in the morning. You go along the fence to make sure a cow hasn’t forced its way through.”

Grandfather’s practical approach also extended to problem solving. When he needed something, Furner’s grandfather — who, according to him, was affected by the Great Depression — preferred to assemble a solution by hand instead of buying something ready-made.

“In business, there are so many unique situations that arise for which there is no clear answer, but with your team, your resources, American ingenuity and creativity, there is probably a way to resolve it,” he said.

Furner’s penchant for hard work and creative problem solving served him well in his more recent and higher-profile roles as president and CEO of Sam’s Club and then Walmart in the United States.

During his time at the helm of Sam’s Club, Furner led 11 consecutive quarters of growth and took on competitor Costco, in part by making the company leaner and closing stores.

Then, when the company was hit by an unprecedented challenge with the COVID-19 pandemic, Furner helped strengthen the supply chain and distribution centers to respond to the moment.

As Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the National Retail Federation, told Matthew Shay, in 2020, Walmart reshaped its business, deprioritizing optical and automotive service centers and investing in the food segment to meet the demand of the so-called “stocking phase”, when consumers rushed to reinforce their stocks of everything from toilet paper to consumer goods.

Then, the company invested heavily in distribution centers, as well as pickup and delivery services, to adapt to the era of remote work and the surge in online shopping.

As a result, net sales grew in both 2020 and 2021, despite disruptions caused by the pandemic. In 2021 alone, Walmart’s net sales in the United States increased by an impressive $29 billion, handily surpassing the previous year’s growth, while e-commerce operations advanced 79%.