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On Tuesday, Walmart said it had appointed Suresh Kumar as Global Director of Technology and Global Development Director, a position recently created within the company. Kumar will report directly to CEO Doug McMillon.
Kumar will assume the duties of Jeremy King, former chief technology officer of Walmart. King left the retailer in March for Pinterest (PINS). Kumar will also assume increasing responsibility for King's previous role, including leading Walmart's Global Technology Operations and Global Business Services.
Kumar is currently at Google (GOOG)where he works as vice president and general manager of display, video, application announcements and analytics. Prior to joining Google, he was Corporate Vice President of From Microsoft (MSFT) infrastructure and cloud operations. Kumar has also spent 15 years in Amazon (AMZN) in various executive roles, including Vice President of Retail Systems and Operations Technology.
Walmart "is experiencing a very exciting digital transformation," Kumar said in a press release. "The potential of technology to help people on a large scale is unprecedented."
Walmart (WMT) has focused its investments in recent years on online expansion rather than on the opening of new stores. Last year, Walmart invested more than $ 5 billion in e-commerce, technology and its supply chain, while only $ 313 million was spent on store expansions. . In 2018, Walmart also bought the online retailer Flipkart in India for $ 16 billion.
Walmart also purchased a series of online brands such as Bonobos and Eloquii, and added grocery delivery as well as online shopping and in-store shopping. Walmart's digital sales grew 40% last year.
"We have begun a significant digital transformation of our business, but we still have a long way to go," said McMillon in an internal email to Walmart staff. "We want to accelerate the pace and increase the scale of change, so we're creating a new role that's directly up to me."
Kumar will begin July 8th, from the Walmart office in Sunnyvale, California.
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