The latest looks in leadership: after some bumps, Wal-Mart enters 2006 with a reshuffled senior management team set to embark on new initiatives

DSN Retailing Today, Feb 27, 2006 by Mike Troy

Wal-Mart is planning to execute a broad slate of new initiatives this year under the leadership of an executive team that during the past 18 months was impacted by scandal, retirement, burnout, restructuring and an influx of new hires. The sweeping transformation that resulted among senior management requires a scorecard to keep track of who's who and who's new.

Lee Scott remains at the helm of the company as president and ceo despite widespread speculation last summer that he planned to retire. Instead, he created a new structure with John Menzer and Mike Duke serving as vice chairman, a position Scott held six years ago prior to being named president and ceo.

Menzer, who previously served as president and ceo of Wal-Mart International, gained responsibility for the $209 billion Wal-Mart Stores USA division as well as real estate, logistics, information systems, benefits, global procurement, financial services, store planning and strategic planning.

Mike Duke had previously handled many of those responsibilities as president and ceo of the U.S. stores division, but as vice chairman gained responsibility for Wal-Mart's $63.8 billion international division.

Filling Duke's former role as president and ceo of Wal-Mart Stores USA is Eduardo Castro-Wright, the former president and ceo of Wal-Mart de Mexico who had been named coo of the U.S. stores division a little over a year ago.

Those changes garnered most of the headlines and were set in motion by the series of events surrounding former vice chairman Tom Coughlin who retired in early 2005 and recently pled guilty to wire fraud and tax evasion charges. In addition, former coo Jim Haworth was fired in early 2005. Haworth oversaw a massive U.S. field operations group that included divisional senior vps Ed Nagy, Larry Williams, Mike Huffaker, Terry Pharr, David Jackson and Pat Curran. With the exception of Curran, who was promoted to evp of store operations and reports to Castro-Wright, the store's division is under all-new leadership that includes divisional senior vps Mike Moore, Del Sloneker, Pam Kohn and recent hires Michael Lewis and Hank Mullany.

Another area of substantial change involved the marketing organization where the retirement of evp Bob Connolly was announced in early 2005 and former Wal-Mart.com president and ceo John Fleming was named to replace him. Fleming subsequently hired former Frito-Lay executive Stephen Quinn as senior vp of marketing and Quinn proceeded to restructure the group and hire former Frito-Lay and Pepsi executives to join him including Robert Atencio as vp, insights and customer strategy; Steve Bratspies as vp, category marketing; Greg Hall as director of marketing; and Tony Rogers as senior director of brand management. Another major development in the marketing department came just last month when former Chrysler executive Julie Roehm was named senior vp of marketing communications.

Beyond marketing, the merchandising group has seen a number of changes as well. Doug Degn and Claire Watts continue to serve as evps of merchandising but the organization has suffered several departures as senior vp/gmms Lois Mikita and Ronnie Hoyt both took leaves of absence. More recently, Wal-Mart veteran Dave Dible retired as evp of merchandising. He was responsible for the specialty division that includes shoes, jewelry, photo, optical and pharmacy. His replacement and decisions about the reporting structure of the specialty division had not been made at press time, but changes have taken place within that organization as well. Last year, Art Alderson was named to replace Frank Seagrave as vp of pharmacy.

On the international front, changes within specific countries are too numerous to mention, but some notable ones involve the appointment of former Wal-Mart International coo Ed Kolodzieski to serve as president and ceo of Wal-Mart Japan.

Earlier in 2005, Andy Bond replaced Tony DeNunzio as president and ceo of ASDA and he implemented a restructuring of the U.K. operations. Meanwhile in Germany, David Wild was named president and managing director to replace Dr. Kay Hafner who resigned. Uwe Klenk-Zilli was named chief merchandising officer after spending time with Wal-Mart Canada as a merchandise vp.

At the home office, Wan Ling Martello was named cfo of the international division after John Lewis resigned last year.

In a final bit of irony, Sam's Club, once Wal-Mart's most turbulent division from a leadership and strategy standpoint, became its most stable. Sam's Club did lose president and ceo Kevin Turner last year to Microsoft, but the $40 billion division didn't miss a beat when Doug McMillon was elevated to president and ceo from his position as evp of merchandising. Gregg Spragg was named evp of merchandising after serving as evp of operations. Greg Johnston moved up to fill that role after serving as a regional vp. Mark Goodman, a former executive with McDonald's, joined Sam's late last year as evp of marketing, membership and e-commerce. Long-time Sam's employee Kenny Folk also returned to the organization as senior vp of new business after serving several years as senior vp of store planning.