The Furner Era Begins: What Walmart's CEO Transition Means for Retail | Fast Five Shorts

Doug McMillan is retiring and he's turning over the reins to your man crush, John Furner this upcoming February.

According to the Wall street journal, under McMillan's tenure, Walmart shares have risen more than 400% on a total return basis and the company has gained $576 billion in market capitalization.

It has also grown to more than $680 billion in annual revenue.

Meanwhile, McMillan successor John Furner has served as CEO of Walmart US since 2019, overseeing the company's largest operating segment and more than 4,600 stores.

John Furner grew up in Arkansas and his first job with Walmart was a part time role in a local store in 1993.

He has held leadership roles across merchandising operations and sourcing internationally, as well as Walmart's warehouse chain, Sam's Club.

Chris, I know you're going to have a lot of these, so let's begin with your thoughts on Doug McMillan as well as his successor, John Furner.

And we are putting a timer on you for the.

John, are you okay?

Okay.

All right.

All right, well, I'll take Doug first and I'm going to share a couple anecdotes about both of them because I think there's some personal things that I want to get into here.

But so first, Doug, I don't know if I've ever shared this story on the podcast.

I think, Ann, you've heard it before.

But the single greatest compliment I ever received is in my, probably in my life, in my, at least in my professional career, was back in, it was like 2000, late 2009, early 2010, I was in Boston, I was out, I was running baby for Target at the time.

And I was out with the Dorel Juvenile Group and a guy named Ted Kelly was there.

He was, he was part of their team.

And he said to me, he said, God, Chris, you remind me of Doug McMillan.

And at the time, like, I didn't know who Doug McMillan was.

You know, I had heard him a little bit.

He was like, I think CEO of Walmart International.

He wasn't CEO yet.

And then a few years later, he gets named CEO.

And, and for that reason, like, I am absolutely humbled by what Ted Kelly said to me that day because there is no way I hold a candle to Doug McMillan, because Doug McMillan, in my opinion, and is going to go down as the second greatest CEO in the history of Walmart.

And when the first, the person at the top of that list is the founder Sam Walton, that's, that's saying something.

Right.

Like, he's hard.

He's hard to, you know, you know, to get in front of.

So, so that's my thoughts on Doug.

Doug is just done an amazing, amazing job and he's going to be a retail icon forever.

And he's going out on top.

Now.

John Furner, you mentioned it.

Man crush.

He's my single favorite person in retail.

We've interviewed him a few times.

But my favorite anecdote about him is I wrote an article describing Sam's Club strategy back in like 2019 for Forbes and what I liked about it.

And it was like, right in advance, a grocery shop.

And all of a sudden I get this email out of the blue saying, hey, Chris, John Furner would like to meet you and talk to you at grocery shop.

And no one has ever done that since.

Like, in that way, he's the only person that's done that.

And I sat down with him at that show for 45 minutes, you and I both did.

And we just rapped with him about retail and got a sense of how he's thinking about the future.

And this was back in 2019, almost six, almost six years ago.

And to see it play out exactly as he was talking about shows me that he has a strategic understanding of where retail is going.

And he is the right man for the job, particularly when you look at what he's done on the US side, the business too.

So, so kudos to him.

He was the architect of Sam's Club success.

He's been the architect of Walmart's US's recent success.

And so the only thing I can say to him is, John, John, please don't screw it up.

Because then I got to start talking about, you know, the fact of what you're, what you're not getting.

Right.

And I want to keep talking about all the things you guys are continuing to do right at Walmart.

Yeah, I mean, I, I think the other part that you didn't mention both about McMillan and, and Furner is their leadership styles and the culture that they're creating at Walmart to make things go the way that it they have for Walmart in the last several years.

I think it's important to Note that under McMillan's leadership, we heard from almost, we were very close with the teams at Walmart.

We interview them often.

And one of the things that we hear all the time is that McMillan created a culture that really diminished the politics that can happen.

And he really made it an environment where there was a fail fast mentality.

It was not about presenting to the.

Your boss's boss's boss's boss, it was, how do we get something that can be launched quickly, get ahead of our competitors and really focus on making sure that we're doing the best so that we can make sure that our customers are living better and that they're in an experience where they can live better and save money.

Um, he took Walmart from People of Walmart, the, the meme to Walmart for the people.

And I think that's something, as you mentioned, will go down in, in Doug McMillan's in, in remembrance of Doug McMillan's tenure.

I think the second thing too, is about Furner's leadership, John, as you mentioned how he reached out to you.

He's approachable and he's empathetic.

He grew, he has grown up, as we mentioned in the company, literally.

He, he started his own podcast at Walmart so that the people that work there could understand the people who are working in all areas of the business and made sure that people develop that empathy that he's so well known for, so that you're, you're talking to your colleagues differently.

I think the, the last thing about Furner that will be so important as we look at the next 10 years of Walmart is that when you lead with empathy and curiosity and like Ferner does, he doesn't have to be the smartest person in the room.

He's the most curious.

And I think that's what will be so important, especially when you think about how much AI is impacting the future of everyone's businesses, but especially Walmart.

So I think they, they have a great, great years ahead with Ferner and really well done, Doug McMillan.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You bring up some great points there too.

And like, one thing I hadn't thought about is like, they've taken some big swings on some strategies too.

Like I think of Walmart Commerce Technologies, you know, that that's kind of gone away, you know, like, but they were after.

They went after it.

So they've had, they've had some misses too, but those misses don't detract from the overall success.

And when you're taking, you know, at bats, that's the most important thing here as you think about the future of retail, instead of just, you know, stand doing what you've always tried to do.