Business
Walmart CEO Doug McMillon to retire in January after nearly 12 years leading retailer
Walmart CEO Doug McMillon is retiring early next year, after overseeing the top U.S. retailer’s transformation into an e-commerce behemoth, the company said Friday in a filing.
The longtime CEO will be succeeded by John Furner, the Walmart U.S. CEO, on Feb. 1, according to the filing.
McMillon, who stepped into the top role at Walmart in February 2014, will officially retire as of Jan. 31. He will continue to serve as an executive officer of the company and be employed by Walmart as an advisor through Jan. 31, 2027.
Furner, 51, has been the CEO of Walmart’s U.S. business since 2019. In that role, he oversees more than 4,600 stores and the largest sector of the company. He started at the company in 1993 as an hourly associate.
Walmart Inc. President and CEO Doug McMillon delivers a keynote address during CES 2024 at The Venetian Resort Las Vegas on January 9, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ethan Miller | Getty Images
The announcement of the CEO transition comes only six days before the retailer is set to report quarterly earnings. Walmart shares were up 13% this year as of Thursday’s close, as the company grows its digital business and wins over more high-income shoppers.
For more than a decade, McMillon, 59, has led the retail giant and overseen the company’s growth as an e-commerce leader. He also oversaw the business during a tumultuous time marked by the Covid pandemic, supply chain disruptions, high inflation and tariff changes.
During his time leading the company, Walmart’s shares have risen more than 300%. The company’s stock closed Friday at $102.48, roughly flat.
Walmart stock since Feb. 1, 2014.
From hourly employees to CEOs
McMillon and Furner have had similar paths to the top role at Walmart. Both have spent about three decades at Walmart. They both began as hourly associates and moved up the ranks at the retail giant, serving in merchandising and operations roles. Both also served as chief executives of its warehouse club, Sam’s Club.
Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) announced that its Board of Directors has elected John Furner, 51, to succeed Doug McMillon, 59, as President and Chief Executive Officer of Walmart Inc., effective February 1, 2026.
Courtesy: Walmart Inc.
In a statement, Walmart chairman Greg Penner described Furner as “the right leader to guide Walmart into the next chapter of our growth and transformation.”
“After starting as an hourly associate and being with us for over 30 years in a variety of leadership roles across all three of our operating segments, John understands every dimension of our business – from the sales floor to global strategy,” Penner added.
“Serving as Walmart’s CEO has been a great honor and I’m thankful to our Board and the Walton family for the opportunity,” McMillon said in a statement.
He said Furner’s “curiosity and digital acumen combined with a deep commitment to our people and culture will enable him to take us to the next level.”
Along with Walmart, big-box competitor Target is also poised to get a new leader in early 2026. Target announced last month that Michael Fiddelke, chief operating officer and former chief financial officer, will succeed longtime Target CEO Brian Cornell on Feb. 1.
Digital growth and workforce transformation
As the leader of Walmart, McMillon played an instrumental role in turning the nation’s largest grocer into an e-commerce giant and positioning the company to sell more advertisements and more discretionary merchandise, along with dozens of eggs and gallons of milk.
During his early years as CEO, McMillon greenlit the $3.3 billion acquisition of Jet.com in 2016, an e-commerce startup that Walmart hoped would fuel digital growth and give it credibility as it tried to fight back against Amazon’s meteoric rise.
The startup’s acquisition — particularly its steep price tag — prompted debates in retail circles about whether the retail giant had overpaid for the asset and if that move was needed to help Walmart navigate a rocky entry into the world of e-commerce. Yet the deal gained Walmart talent with digital know-how, particularly Jet.com founder and serial entrepreneur Marc Lore who had sold his previous company, Quidsi, the parent of Diapers.com, to Amazon and worked for Amazon for years.
During Lore’s years as leader of Walmart’s U.S. e-commerce business, Walmart bought digital native businesses including menswear company Bonobos and birthed other in-house concepts, such as mattress brand Allswell. Walmart later sold Bonobos and other digital businesses, and shuttered Jet.com in 2020.
Though the Jet.com deal did not meet some Wall Street investors’ expectations, McMillon on a call with analysts at the time credited the acquisition for “jump-starting the progress we have made the last few years” in digital growth and curbside pickup and delivery.
Over the past five years, Walmart has leaned on its membership program, Walmart+, and its third-party marketplace as it tries to fend off Amazon’s e-commerce dominance. It launched Walmart+, its own subscription service and its answer to Amazon Prime, in 2020 and has continued to add perks like streaming through Paramount+.
Through its third-party marketplace, it has bulked up its merchandise offerings on virtual shelves by leaning on independent sellers to provide its customers with a wider range of clothing items, beauty brands and even luxury handbags. The model, which mirrored Amazon’s approach, also allowed Walmart to make money in new ways, such as selling ads and fulfillment services to sellers.
A CNBC investigation earlier this year found Walmart’s marketplace boom came as it made it easier than Amazon did over time for sellers to join the platform. CNBC uncovered at least 43 vendors who had taken the identity of another business to sell on Walmart’s marketplace, and some of those accounts were offering counterfeit beauty products.
Elsewhere in the company, McMillon also shook up Walmart’s pay structure for its hundreds of thousands of employees, announcing in 2015 that the company would give a raise to half a million hourly employees and increase wages to $9 an hour — a move that at the time faced sharp criticism on Wall Street.
In more recent years, Walmart has hiked wages multiple more times. But it has faced persistent criticism from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and other politicians who have argued the company has failed to share enough of its profits with hourly employees through pay and benefits.
As the nation’s largest private employer, Walmart has also been closely watched as the rise of artificial intelligence brings workforce changes and could threaten employment.
McMillon recently said that AI “is going to change literally every job.”
In a statement, McMillon referred to the growth of AI being a new dynamic facing his successor. And, he said, Furner is “uniquely capable of leading the company through this next AI-driven transformation.”
One of Britain’s most prolific rail fare dodgers could face jail after admitting dozens of travel offences.
Charles Brohiri, 29, pleaded guilty to travelling without buying a ticket a total of 112 times over a two-year period, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard.
He could be ordered to pay more than £18,000 in unpaid fares and legal costs, the court was told.
He will be sentenced next month.
District Judge Nina Tempia warned Brohiri “could face a custodial sentence because of the number of offences he has committed”.
He pleaded guilty to 76 offences on Thursday.
It came after he was convicted in his absence of 36 charges at a previous hearing.
During Thursday’s hearing, Judge Tempia dismissed a bid by Brohiri’s lawyers to have the 36 convictions overturned.
They had argued the prosecutions were unlawful because they had not been brought by a qualified legal professional.
But Judge Tempia rejected the argument, saying there had been “no abuse of this court’s process”.
JSW Jetour T2 Launch: JSW Motors Limited, the passenger vehicle arm of the JSW Group, is reportedly preparing to enter the Indian car market this year. It has partnered with Jetour, a China-based automotive brand owned by Chery Automobile, and the Jetour T2 SUV could be the company’s first product, according to the reports.
Media reports suggest that the launch will happen independently and not under the JSW MG Motor India joint venture. The SUV will wear a JSW badge and name, instead of the Jetour branding. The upcoming SUV will be assembled at JSW’s upcoming greenfield manufacturing facility in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, Maharashtra.
According to the reports, the company plans to have the vehicle on sale by the third quarter of this year. With this move, JSW aims to establish itself as a standalone carmaker in India.
Expected Powertrain
The SUV is likely to arrive with a 1.5-litre plug-in hybrid setup. Internationally, this hybrid powertrain is offered with both front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive options. It is still unclear which version will be introduced in India.
Design
In terms of design, the T2 is a large and rugged-looking SUV. It has a boxy and upright stance, similar to vehicles like the Land Rover Defender. Despite its tough appearance, it uses a monocoque chassis instead of a ladder-frame construction.
Size
The SUV measures around 4.7 metres in length and nearly 2 metres in width. This makes it larger than the Tata Safari, even though it is a five-seater. A longer 7-seat version is also sold in some markets.
Price
Pricing details for India are yet to be announced. For reference, the front-wheel-drive five-seat T2 i-DM is priced at AED 1,44,000 (around Rs 35 lakh) in the UAE.
Jetour
Jetour is a brand owned by Chinese automaker Chery. Launched in 2018, it focuses mainly on SUVs and is present in markets across China, the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America.
John Swinney has been pressed over whether this week’s Scottish Budget gives some workers the “smallest tax cut in history” – with Tory leader Russell Findlay branding the reduction “miserly” and “insulting”.
The Scottish Conservative leader challenged the First Minister after Tuesday’s Holyrood Budget effectively cut taxes for lower earners, by increasing the threshold for the basic and intermediate bands of income tax.
But Mr Findlay said that would leave workers at most £31.75 a year better off – saying this amounts to a saving of just £61p a week
“That wouldn’t even buy you a bag of peanuts,” the Scottish Tory leader said.
“John Swinney’s Budget might even have broken a world record, because a Scottish Government tax adviser says it ‘maybe the smallest tax cut in history’.”
Raising the “miserly cut” at First Minister’s Questions in the Scottish Parliament, Mr Findlay demanded to know if the SNP leader believed his “insulting tax cut will actually help Scotland’s struggling households”.
The attack came as the Tory accused the SNP government of increasing taxes on higher earners, with its freeze on higher income tax thresholds, which will pull more Scots into these brackets.
This is needed to pay for the “SNP’s out of control, unaffordable benefits bill”, the Conservative added.
Mr Findlay said: “The Scottish Conservatives will not back and cannot back a Budget that does nothing to help Scotland’s workers and businesses.
“It hammers people with higher taxes to fund a bloated benefits system.”
Hitting out at Labour – whose leader Anas Sarwar has already declared they will not block the government’s Budget – Mr Findlay said: “It is absolutely mind-blowing that Labour and other so-called opposition parties will let this SNP boorach of a budget pass.
“Don’t the people of Scotland deserve lower taxes, fairer benefits and a government focused on economic growth?”
Mr Swinney said the Budget “delivers on the priorities of the people of Scotland” by “strengthening our National Health Service and supporting people and businesses with the challenges of the cost of living”.
He insisted income tax decisions in the Budget would mean that in 2026-27 “55% of Scottish taxpayers are now expected to pay less income tax than if they lived in England”.
The First Minister went on to say that showed “the people of Scotland have a Government that is on their side”.
Referring to polls putting his party on course to win the Holyrood elections in May, the SNP leader added that “all the current indications show the people of Scotland want to have this Government here for the long term”.
Benefits funding is “keeping children out of poverty”, he told MSPs, adding the Budget contained a “range of measures” that would build on existing support.
The First Minister said: “What that is a demonstration of is a Government that is on the side of the people of Scotland and I am proud of the measures we set out in the Budget on Tuesday.”
Meanwhile he said the Tories wanted to make tax cuts that would cost £1 billion, with “not a scrap of detail about how that would be delivered”.
With the weekly leaders’ question time clash coming less than 48 hours after the draft 2026-27 Budget was unveiled, the First Minister also faced questions from Scottish Labour’s Anas Sarwar, who insisted that the proposals “lacks ambition for Scotland”.
Pressing his SNP rival, the Scottish Labour leader said: “While he brags about his £6 a year tax cut for the lowest paid, one million Scots including nurses, teachers and police officers face being forced to pay more.
“Even his own tax adviser says this is a political stunt. So why does John Swinney believe that someone earning £33,500 has the broadest shoulders and therefore should pay more tax in Scotland?”
Mr Swinney, however, said that many public sector workers would be better off in Scotland.
He told the Scottish Labour leader: “A band six nurse at the bottom of the scale will take home an additional £1,994 after tax compared to the same band in England.
“A qualified teacher at the bottom of the band will take home £6,365 more after tax in Scotland than the equivalent in England. There are the facts for Mr Sarwar.”
Trident accelerates European home textiles expansion
Fiza Ali extends heartwarming wishes to ex-husband on his second marriage
Serial rail fare evader faces jail over 112 unpaid tickets
-
Politics1 week agoUK says provided assistance in US-led tanker seizure
-
Entertainment1 week agoDoes new US food pyramid put too much steak on your plate?
-
Entertainment1 week agoWhy did Nick Reiner’s lawyer Alan Jackson withdraw from case?
-
Business1 week agoTrump moves to ban home purchases by institutional investors
-
Sports5 days agoClock is ticking for Frank at Spurs, with dwindling evidence he deserves extra time
-
Sports1 week agoPGA of America CEO steps down after one year to take care of mother and mother-in-law
-
Business1 week agoBulls dominate as KSE-100 breaks past 186,000 mark – SUCH TV
-
Business1 week agoGold prices declined in the local market – SUCH TV