Few business leaders can say they started their careers as hourly workers and managed to climb the corporate ladder to the top. Walmart’s departing CEO, Doug McMillon, is one of those rare exceptions whose decades of dedication paid off in the end — but now that his exit date is in sight, he’s eager to hang up his hat and enjoy the quiet.
“I’ve never had a blank schedule, and now I’ve seen what one looks like every few months, and that’s really exciting,” McMillon said recently on CNBC’s Squawk Box.
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But don’t expect your calendar to remain empty for long. The 59-year-old executive admitted that his post-Walmart retirement will include “some combination of business and philanthropic activities.”
And his next venture — whether full-time, part-time or volunteer — may not be too far in the future either, as the outgoing executive revealed he will be “taking a few months” off.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that McMillon’s vision for retirement includes some kind of work. He’s still a few years below typical retirement age in the United States and recently said he was “loving” his job.
But McMillon said he knew now was the time to pass the baton at Walmart, as AI leads the company into a new era: “About a year ago, I started to really get a feel for this next step; I could see what agentive commerce, the vision of AI shopping would look like. And I started thinking about everything that needs to happen in the next few years, and that really led me to conclude that now was the right time.”
John Furner, who like McMillon is a Walmart veteran, will take over next year.
“When you see someone who is ready to run the next lap better and faster than you, it’s time to pass the baton, get out of the way and just cheer,” added McMillon.
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From warehouse worker to CEO
McMillon has spent the last 10 years leading the $918 billion retail giant as CEO and is scheduled to retire at the end of January next year.
But the chief executive of America’s largest private employer — which commands a workforce of 2.1 million employees — has a very different resume than many of his Fortune 500 executive peers.
Instead of jumping from company to company in search of bigger pay raises and higher positions, McMillon remained loyal to the company throughout his 40-year career.
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He started off unloading trailers at Walmart warehouses, earning a few dollars an hour; as CEO, he received an annual salary of US$1.5 million, plus another US$25 million in stock and non-equity compensation.
“My first stint at Walmart was just to make money over the summer and help pay for my education,” McMillon said at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in 2017. “And I didn’t intend to stay there for long.”
It was 1984, and McMillon was still just a college student when he got his first job at Walmart: picking orders and unloading trailers in a warehouse, earning $6.50 an hour.
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But after completing his undergraduate degree at the University of Arkansas in 1989 and earning his MBA from the University of Tulsa, McMillon traded warehouse floors for office cubicles.
He became a fishing tackle buyer for the retail giant in 1991, and the rest of his career in the corporate world is history. After working his way through several senior leadership roles, he eventually landed the coveted role of CEO in 2014.
While there is no exact formula for McMillon’s remarkable career rise, the outgoing CEO credited his proactive approach to work with getting him to the top.
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He volunteered to take on challenging tasks and attended meetings in place of his bosses when they were not present. By the time a promotion came along, McMillon had already proven he was ready to take the next step.
“One of the reasons I had the opportunities I had was that I would raise my hand when my boss was out of town and he or she was visiting stores or something,” McMillon told Stratechery last year.
“I would go to meetings, and if I knew the answer to a question that came up, I would share it, and if I didn’t, I would say, ‘I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out quickly and get back to you.’ So I put myself in an environment where I became a low-risk promotion because people had already seen me do the work.”
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