Dive Brief:
- Walmart picked a new chief executive for its Sam's Club business, the company announced Friday.
- Filling the role is Kathryn McLay, who has served in a handful of executive positions at Walmart since 2015, most recently as executive vice president of Walmart's U.S. Neighborhood Markets unit. Her appointment is effective as of Friday.
- McLay replaces John Furner in the role. Walmart in October promoted Furner to CEO of its U.S. business following the departure of Greg Foran from the company.
Dive Insight:
Walmart once again has reached into its deep bench of executives to fill one of its prominent domestic roles.
McLay started out as the retailer's vice president of finance and strategy in the U.S., after having worked in various roles at Australian retailer Woolworths for 14 years. Walmart quickly promoted her to its domestic senior vice president of supply chain, where she was until February when she was tapped for the Neighborhood Markets role.
Less than a year later, McLay is leading the 36-year-old Sam's Club, which made $57.8 billion in net sales in its previous fiscal year, down about 2.4% from the previous year.
Sam's Club, with about 600 stores, has been going through a multiyear transition as it pares its brick-and-mortar stores and invests in its e-commerce business.
Last year, the warehouse retailer unveiled a smaller-formatted cashierless store concept, dubbed Sam's Club Now, that was also meant to function as a mobile-first technology lab that would incubate and refine new tech services.
Like the consistently well-performing Costco, Sam's operates on slim product margins and relies heavily on membership fees for profit.
