Walmart Shakes Up Its Leadership Team

July 6, 2010

Walmart’s leadership shake up right before the July 4 weekend was topped off with the resignation of John Fleming, chief merchandising officer and principle architect of the company’s remerchandising and SKU rationalization programs.

Bill Simon

In a memo to employees, Bill Simon, who last week was promoted to president and CEO of Walmart U.S., said Fleming “has made a personal decision to leave the company. In the 10 years John has spent at Walmart he has built a strong team and been the architect of groundbreaking efforts to grow our e-commerce business, creative marketing programs to communicate with customers and inventive merchandising initiatives.”

Simon was promoted when Eduardo Castro-Wright, the vice chairman and former head of U.S. operations, was named president and CEO of Global.com and Global Sourcing. Simon now reports directly to Walmart President and CEO Mike Duke.

While Walmart searches for a replacement for Fleming, his duties are being divided among Jack Sinclair and John Wrestling. Sinclair, executive vice president and general manager, grocery is also heading up the food and health and wellness merchandising teams; Wrestling, executive vice president, planning, pricing and replenishment will also lead the general merchandising and replenishment teams.

Both Sinclair and Wrestling will report directly to Simon until a new CMO is named. Simon also announced the promotion of Gisel Ruiz to executive vice president, Walmart People.

Regarding Simon’s promotion last week, Duke said: "Bill is a strong leader who has made a positive difference from his first day at Walmart. He's been responsible for successfully running more than 3,700 stores and leading 1.3 million associates in the U.S. Bill transformed the customer experience at Walmart through faster service, a friendlier shopping environment and cleaner stores. He also helped develop and launch our game-changing $4 prescription drug program and has continued to drive innovation and improvement throughout Walmart U.S. He is a talented strategist and an excellent people manager with strong execution skills."

In his memo to employees Simon said: “Our leadership team will focus on picking up our pace to meet our challenges. We have an organization with the determination to compete to win in the marketplace.”

SBD Views: On February 2nd when we published "Walmart Melds Merchandising and Operations to Sharpen Customer Focus" we wondered how shared responsibility for Walmart’s new Merchandising Execution Division would work reporting to both Bill Simon and John Fleming. With all major functions at Walmart U.S. now reporting directly to Bill Simon, it’s clear Simon has been given both the charge and the authority to drive Walmart’s U.S. business. It will be interesting to see what role Simon will cast for store brands in the future. -- John Failla for Store Brands Decisions.

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Keywords: bill simon, business, companies, eduardo castro-wright, food and beverage, grocery, industry, john fleming, markets, mass, wal-mart, walmart

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