Walmart EVP Cedric Clark Talks Walmart’s "People-Led, Tech-Powered" Retail Innovations | NRF 2025

Welcome back, everybody.

This is Omnitalk retail.

I'm Anne Mazinga.

And I'm Chris Walton.

And we are here once again from the Fusion group, booth number 4938.

Come by.

It's our last day here, Chris, So if you're gonna stop by and say hello, what are you waiting for?

It's time.

We'll be here again all day, except for the moment that I get to be on stage with the gentleman standing in between Chris and myself.

Here we have Cedric Queen Clark.

Cedric is the EVP of store operations at Walmart.

Cedric, welcome to omnitalk.

Yeah, this is kind of a fanboy moment, so, you know, I just gotta kind of throw that out there.

And yes, excited to be on stage with you later, but I hope I don't screw it up, man.

You won't.

I've been getting a lot of questions about when you guys.

When you guys go on stage, tell the audience.

Okay.

Yeah, a lot of people are excited to see that.

I've been getting a lot of questions about it on social media.

So it's probably because Cedric asked me this morning.

He wanted to know who my.

My X man I most wanted.

Oh, thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Yes, I try.

I try really hard with those questions every week.

All right, well, let's get to it because I.

And we're going to kind of give you guys a little preview of what you can expect on stage.

But I imagine they're going to go even more in depth on certain topics here at nrf because there's more time than what we have here.

But, Cedric, let's start with the obvious question.

Tell us about yourself.

Tell us about your background and your role.

Yeah.

So I get the fortune now to lead our 1.2 million associates in Walmart U.S.

operations.

I mean, just a little small job.

Yeah.

Right.

I started 22 years ago in sporting goods, man, Selling fishing licenses in the state of Washington.

So my journey has been, you know, on the shop floor.

Yeah.

Starting at the entry level, supporting the business.

I did a vast array of roles on there.

I was in asset protection.

I ran a region in Chicago.

So what I love about that is I get the opportunity to bring any of those thoughts and experience.

Experiences into decisions we make, which is going to be to put the associates in a position to be the best place to work.

So steeped in field leadership.

That's what I get from that resume.

That's great.

Well, we've heard from a lot of your colleagues that we've talked to here at nrf.

I've heard you say this, that Walmart is people led and tech powered.

Did I get that right?

You got it right.

People led, tech powered.

Now, can you talk to us a little bit about, in your role, what technologies you're seeing that are of interest to you as you kind of go forward, trying to, you know, tech power the people in the space.

Yeah.

And what I love about that is you got to have a North Star, you know, and our founder in 92, before he passed away, got the medal of Freedom, and he talked about this, you know, framework of making it better to live.

Right.

Because.

And doing that in America, like that was one of his goals.

And so then save money, you know, helping people save money and live better.

Yeah.

Frame.

And so then when I look at that like having 1.2 million associates, the ability to do that is how do I create and curate an opportunity to have them empowered to delight the customer.

So with that, I'll go into a technology, you know, we here at the Vujin Group booth, but we're partnering with them on digital shelf labels.

Yeah.

When I think about, it's just not the price on there, but there's, you know, the LED light that allows an associate, when they show up on day one to where it can light up when they hit it on the device to say, oh, my goodness, that's where the item is if I have to stock it or if I have to pick it for a customer.

So part of our responsibility, and my responsibility specifically, is to make sure what technology we invest in allows the associate to have a great experience with the customer.

Yeah.

And so that's.

That's really, you know, how I frame our North Star to kind of our operating system to make sure we deliver the best place to shop and work.

Yeah.

Right.

And having worked in the stores ourselves, I can't imagine.

I can imagine that the store teams are loving the fact that there's potentially no ad takedown ever again or set up or take down, you know.

Right.

Set up, really more so than takedown.

But.

But, yeah.

All right, so you guys are always piloting new technology.

We follow you guys constantly.

I think you're in our fast five every single week.

What have you found is an ingredient to successfully roll out a technology, especially when it impacts the store level teams.

Yeah.

I think for me is make sure you don't invest in technology.

Just to invest in technology.

A few things I think it has to enhance.

It has to enhance the speed of what you're doing, which then equates to productivity.

So if I'm thinking of being an associate.

Price changes.

For example, when we think about the partnership with Fusion Group, Man, I used to have to go in the back with a Garvey gun.

I had to scan the label.

Right.

Then I'd have to go back and get the little perforated sheet with all the things on them, rip them off, get paper cuts.

Oh, my God.

And I could keep going.

For me, it was every Sunday.

It was, it was, it was, it was awful.

And then to think about, now I'm going to be able to take the operating system, which is a phone in our pocket.

Yeah.

Two clicks in.

Yeah.

And then the price changes that we actually, you know, are rolling out to our customers, they're like that.

Like that changes your life.

And so I'm thinking about when I started to.

Now I will remember the day when that tedious task is no longer.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's really how I look at it and how we look at it.

And you can, you can frame that to different technologies around our store.

Right.

And the idea, too, is ultimately, like we heard from probably Tractor Supply, too, is to give your store associates more time to spend with the customers.

Right.

That's how you measure productivity at the end of the day.

Yeah.

And for us, you know, obviously, when the associate sentiment goes up and you feel like you had a good day's work and you got some things done, there's nothing like that.

And, you know, turnover is important in retail.

When you think of the, what I would say is the transient nature of, like, having to hire someone else in, if we're able to mitigate that and lower that and increase our retention, that's the opportunity where I don't have to retrain someone and we can continue to go on the journey of what we're doing to try to put people in a position to say, save money, live better when they come to Walmart.

Yeah.

Well said.

I have a kind of a ethereal question for you, but if you, if you could find a technology to solve, like the number one challenge that your store associates are finding, are encountering right now in their day to day.

Yeah.

Like retail.

I'll take this broadly, but specifically for Walmart.

So that term, when it looks at, on an app, if I'm going onto Walmart.com, your accuracy, availability allows me the opportunity.

Opportunity to shop.

If you walk in a store, your accuracy of availability allows me the opportunity to get to the shelf and have the best opportunity to get what we can get.

So with that, that's kind of this framing of our operating system.

And then what technologies will drive that?

There are several things that we're doing, but I want to stay here with digital shelf labels.

This opportunity to take the tedious task.

I told you ahead of time.

But now think about someone that's going to be stocking product comes in.

I've only worked in a store for two days.

I'm going to find cinnamon spice.

And you guys have ever been in the spice aisle.

There's a lot, you know, that's.

That's no man's land.

Exactly.

So but if I don't know that and say I'm not the shopper, but then I get close to it, I hit the button and then something lights up to tell me that experience, like, changes my life.

Yeah.

So cream of tartar, does this go in the sea or the T's?

I don't know.

So.

So now.

Right.

Able to leverage technology.

Yeah.

To be able to do that.

And all we need to do is get them proximity to where it would be in an aisle, and then we're able to do.

Do through views and groups.

DSLs.

Light it up.

And then they're able to either stock it and then the people that go around digitally shopping.

So if you show up to the store and I'm gonna put it in your trunk, that person running around doing your order, they have a better experience.

Well, I have to imagine that it comes in like the.

The inventory availability thing is so key too, I think, because that ends up being like.

Right.

Yes.

And so that sentiment of, okay, I came into 150,000 square foot box, and I have a great point of items like that is anxiety.

If I could mitigate that anxiety.

Yeah.

The pep in my step kind of changes.

And then when I actually go get something done and it resolves in me being efficient in the time that you said that it would take, Then all of a sudden, I have a great relationship with you, the company, and then let's just repeat that thing over and over again.

And then my job is to make sure I'm still listening to that team.

On what things can we continue to do.

Yeah.

To enhance as we go to that next experience.

What else is creating that friction.

Yeah.

That you're talking about.

Yeah, it's a great point.

Inventory accuracy seems like the next frontier of retail in terms of how things are going to get done and how things are going to continue to improve.

All right.

I have to.

I can't let you go without asking you really both this question.

You're going to be on stage at noon here at nrf.

Cedric, what are you hoping the audience here takes away from your session?

Well, first off, I'm hoping that they know I know Ann.

You got that?

I hope you all hear that.

I met Ann and Chris, so, you know, that's, that's the framing there.

But if I'm being very honest, what I want to make sure is they understand, and that's why I'm excited you're doing it.

In with me is like, in a very palatable way.

Walk through what as a retailer, you should be thinking about as you're investing in technology, it costs money, but if your capital is going to enable your assets to simplify the experience for the customer, to give them speed and time back, they're going to repeat it.

And so if we can get that framing across and some examples of what that looks like, I'm actually excited.

I love Walmart, but I'm also excited for those people young in their careers, doing different things around retail space to be able to say, hey, we're going to take this and drive this, because competition actually drives us to do better for the customer.

And so that's what's exciting for me.

And also, you know, I want them to understand Walmart is the best place to work.

And it is a great time frame right now to be a Walmart associate.

And we'd love you to join our teams and go on this journey with us as well.

Yeah, well, that was very well said.

I'm very excited to be on stage with you later.

Um, so we want to give a quick shout out again to Fusion Group for making all the coverage of our NRF 2025 coverage possible.

Again comes up by booth 4938.

Thank you so much to Cedric for making time.

I know you have a lot.

Yeah, I know you're busy, man.

Thank you.

And thanks to all of you for following along.

So, until our next interview, we still have a couple more later to do.

Yes, we do.

Ann, we're not done yet.

No.

Until then, be careful out there.

Take care.