Walmart names Kieran Shanahan EVP and chief operating officer

Editor’s note: John Furner, President and CEO, Walmart U.S., sent the following note to Walmart associates.

Following today’s announcements from Doug, with news that Chris Nicholas has been promoted to president and CEO — Sam’s Club U.S., I’m happy to announce Kieran Shanahan will succeed Chris as EVP and chief operating officer — Walmart U.S.

Kieran has most recently served as executive vice president, International Operations, and regional CEO for Walmart International. In this role, Kieran led performance and strategy for Massmart and Chile, and served as the operating partner for Canada. He also oversaw the Technology, Operations, Marketplace, Real Estate, and Supply Chain teams for International. Prior to this role, Kieran served as EVP and chief growth officer of Sam’s Club. He was responsible for membership, marketing, data monetization, developing future revenue streams, and driving convenience as the differentiator for members.

He moved to the Walmart U.S. team in 2014 as vice president for online grocery and helped pioneer online grocery pickup and delivery. He also served as a divisional merchandise manager (DMM) before becoming senior vice president and general merchandise manager (GMM) for food, consumables, and health and wellness for our Walmart U.S. ecommerce business. He was then promoted to the chief merchant role for Walmart Canada where he helped lead our business there through the pandemic. The breadth of his experience in leading transformational ways of working and developing talent across many areas of our businesses positions him perfectly to lead the end-to-end organization.

While Chris served as COO the past two years, and before that as chief financial officer for Walmart U.S., he helped architect our end-to-end approach for improving our service to customers, and supply chain advancements. And he did this while navigating countless obstacles across the industry. I’m proud to see Chris step up to a new and different challenge leading Sam’s Club U.S. Chris has been a retailer his entire career. He has operated in retail in seven countries, and has served in roles from merchandising, operations, strategy, and finance. Deeply grounded in our purpose, Chris’ focus on listening to our 1.2 million associates has been critical to strengthening our culture, commitment to service and continuous improvement.

You will see Chris and Kieran at our Walmart U.S. Holiday Meeting in Houston next week. Until then, please join me in congratulating Kieran and Chris.