Walmart has hired former Google and Amazon executive Suresh Kumar as chief technology officer and chief development officer.
Mr Kumar brings 25 years of experience to the role, including 15 years of leadership roles at Amazon. He served as corporate vice president of cloud infrastructure and operations at Microsoft before joining Google to head up their display, video, app ads, and analytics team.
The announcement comes at a pivotal time for the supermarket giant, as they look to streamline their business and improve its efficiency, particularly in the expanding e-commerce sector. Walmart President and CEO Doug McMillon said “Suresh has a unique understanding of the intersection of technology and retail, including supply chain, and has deep experience in advertising, cloud and machine learning. And he has a track record of working in partnership with business teams to drive results.”
“Walmart is one of the great success stories in how a company evolves over time to serve the changing needs of its customers, and today it is in the midst of a very exciting digital transformation,” Mr Kumar said. “With more than 11,000 stores, a high-growth e-commerce business and more than 2 million associates worldwide, the potential for technology to help people at scale is unparalleled, and I am excited to be part of this."
