CEO Doug McMillon announced his retirement in November after a decade as the leader of the No. 1 company of Fortune 500. His last day was Jan. 31. His successor is Furner, who began his role as CEO on Sunday after previously serving as president and CEO of Walmart’s US operations.

Furner, 52, began his Walmart journey at a garden center in the company’s hometown of Bentonville, Ark., but will now take on the role of leading the company’s 2.1 million employees and operations around it. 11,000 stores in 19 countries.

After studying marketing management at the University of Arkansas, Furner rose through the ranks at Walmart from store manager to district manager and buyer, then to the corporate side as divisional general manager, and VP of global sourcing. He even spent two years in Shenzhen with Walmart China running merchandising and marketing.

Prior to managing Walmart US, Furner was CEO of Sam’s Club.

“John understands every dimension of our business—from the sales floor to global strategy. He has proven that he can deliver results while living our values,” said Greg Penner, Walmart’s chairman of the board, in a statement.

On his way out the door, McMillon also paid tribute to Furner, who he said has worked hard for 20 years.

“He loves this company and his fellow partners, he understands our business very well, and he has the right attributes to lead us into the future. He is an entrepreneur, operator, innovator and builder,” McMillon said Friday in a post on LinkedIn.

Furner’s investment in employees

In part because of his humble beginnings as a store associate, Furner during his tenure helped oversee a major reworking of how Walmart pays store managers. In an effort to boost morale and retention, Walmart offers top performance managers pay packages ranging between $420,000 and $620,000 per year.

The base salary for workers was raised to between $130,000 and $160,000—more than double the median annual salary of an American worker. Some consist of large stock grants and annual bonuses, which Furner says are intended to “make managers feel like owners.”

The company also has a bonus program for store employees. Some eligible employees may earn up to $1,000 annually from the program based on their years of service, according to the company.

Although AI threatens the jobs of workers across the industry, Furner said the number of its employees in the next five years will remain constant even as workers become more productive. The jobs that will be lost will be replaced by new positions within the company, he added.

“We’re extending people’s careers and the jobs are paying more. The attrition rates are very low,” Furner said during the Brainstorm Tech conference in Park City, Utah in September.

Partly because of these changes, the company claims a top 10 place in luckof Best Great Workplace retail list for 2024.

Why Walmart chose John Furner as CEO

Part of Furner’s management philosophy may have been influenced in part by his family and early experiences. Working on the farm with his grandfather as a child, Furner learned the value of hard work.

“I learned with him that animals don’t rest on Sundays and Saturdays and Wednesdays,” he said, according to Fox News. “They always get up. You get up early in the morning. You go drive the fence line to make sure a cow doesn’t get in its way.”

His grandfather’s hands-on approach was also used to solve problems. When he needed something, Furner’s grandfather, who he says was a product of the Great Depression, preferred to put together a solution by hand rather than buy something.

“In a business, there are many unique situations that just come to you without a clear answer, but between your team, your resources, American ingenuity and creativity—Maybe there is a way to solve it,” he said.

Furner’s passion for hard work and creative problem-solving applied to his most recent high-profile roles as president and CEO of Sam’s Club and then Walmart US During his tenure as leader of Sam’s Club, Furner oversaw 11 consecutive quarters of positive growth and competition. Costco partly by making the company stronger and closing stores.

Then, when the company was hit with an unprecedented challenge in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic, Furner helped the company develop its supply chain and fulfillment centers to meet the occasion.

As he told Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the National Retail Federation in 2020, Walmart is reshaping its business, deprioritizing optical and auto-care centers while investing in the grocery business to meet demand from what he calls the “stock-up phase,” where customers rush to stock up on everything from toilet paper to appliances.

Then, the company invested heavily in fulfillment centers as well as pickup and delivery services to adapt to the era of “work from home” and skyrocketing online purchases.

As a result, net sales grew in 2020 and 2021, despite the destruction of the pandemic. In 2021 alone, Walmart’s net sales for its US business will grow to an eye-popping $29 billion, significantly surpassing last year’s sales growth, while ecommerce operations will grow by 79%.

A version of this story was published by Fortune.com on Nov. 14, 2025.

More at Walmart: