Source | Lianshang.com In the global retail industry, few companies have influenced daily life as persistently and profoundly as Walmart. From a small store in Arkansas in 1962 to operations in 19 countries, nearly 10,800 stores, and serving hundreds of millions of customers worldwide, it is undoubtedly the most representative benchmark in global retail. Walmart's global CEO Doug McMillon joined the company as an hourly associate in 1984 and became CEO thirty years later. During his tenure of over a decade, Walmart has consistently held the top position in global retail. He has not only led the company's comprehensive transformation from a traditional retailer to an omnichannel giant but also guided the team through multiple challenges, including the pandemic, supply chain crises, the rise of e-commerce, and organizational restructuring. Recently, McMillon sat down with Harvard Business Review for an exclusive interview, delving into topics such as transformation in the AI era, corporate mission, long-termism, and organizational capabilities. This article is a refined compilation based on that interview, presenting McMillon's latest thinking as a global retail leader. McMillon will step down as Walmart's global CEO on February 1, 2026.
AI Will Change All Jobs The Road to Change Never Ends
Question: Many people worry that AI, while improving efficiency, will also impact employment. How do you view this issue? What is Walmart's core strategy in the AI field currently?
McMillon: I think it's important to remember who we are, but also to remain open to change. When I think about the opportunities AI brings, the first thing that comes to mind is 'growth.' When generative AI first became popular, our mindset and strategy were relatively balanced, focusing on both offense and defense. But gradually, our strategy has clearly shifted to a more proactive stance.
In fact, since the rise of e-commerce in the 1990s, the online shopping experience hasn't undergone fundamental change; it's essentially still a search box plus a product list model.
Today, we have the opportunity to completely reshape the digital shopping experience: creating a new model that integrates multimedia, is more personalized, and more contextually interactive. This is where we are focusing our investment.
Regarding employment, I do believe AI will affect every one of our jobs in some way, whether it's the work of collecting shopping carts in the parking lot, technical roles, or of course, the transformation of management functions. It's fair to say AI will change how all jobs are done, and it will also create entirely new career opportunities.
We've already seen initial signs that these new roles are more or less related to AI. AI will replace certain tasks, and even some positions, and our goal is to enable every employee to master new tools, continue to create value and drive growth through learning and adaptation, while also fulfilling our responsibility as a large employer.
This is our direction for the coming years. To that end, we've already taken concrete actions, such as opening up access to ChatGPT for our employees and providing related tools to support their learning and growth, so we can embark on this transformation journey together.
Question: How do you help employees embrace such change while also addressing their potential concerns? After all, in reality, some adapt quickly, while others may struggle to keep up.
McMillon: I often joke with my team: I love change, unless it's change that affects me. Honestly, people often don't want to change themselves, but they want others to change. So I think the key is to be honest about reality and remain consistent.
Take AI and our current situation, for example. There are indeed many unknowns. Some investments may not succeed. But overall, I believe most directions will work out, and we should approach them with a 'it can succeed' mindset, working to make the vision a reality, ultimately making customers better off.
I think if you communicate honestly and constantly remind everyone what we're working toward—serving customers and members better, so the business grows and creates more opportunities for everyone—then let's all get involved and learn as we go.
Communication cadence is also important. How often do you communicate? How often do you actually come together? We place great emphasis on in-person, face-to-face interaction, including with frontline associates and store managers. Every year, we bring everyone together with carefully designed agendas aimed at building trust, fostering honest dialogue, sharing experiences, and reminding each other of our big goals.
If something doesn't work or goes wrong, admit it, let it go, and move on to the next thing. Beyond that, I don't know of a better approach. I think you have to be very direct, very honest, provide people with the support they need, encourage them, accompany them, but you must commit to change. Because the cost of not changing is often harder to bear.
Question: In adapting to new technologies, how does Walmart view the allocation of responsibility? Is it primarily the company's responsibility to invest and drive change, or is it the employees' responsibility to proactively update their skills and adapt?
McMillon: That's a great question. Clearly, it's a shared responsibility.
For example, if you had visited Walmart earlier this year, you would have seen that everyone, including myself, was actively learning.
One of the great benefits of working here is that you have direct access to leaders who are pushing innovation at the forefront of AI, and you can ask them questions and engage with them at any time—and we all do.
By spring, my direct leadership team and I realized we needed more resources to support this transformation.
From a high-level perspective, we're clear about what we want to achieve: reshaping e-commerce operations and the customer shopping experience; empowering our employees; improving overall efficiency; managing inventory more precisely... These goals can be further detailed and implemented.
But the issue is that many of us are learning these new things while still handling our day-to-day responsibilities. And this wave of AI change is already upon us.
So we decided to create a new position reporting directly to me, and we announced it a few months ago, with Daniel Danker taking the role.
He comes from Instacart (an on-demand grocery delivery company), and has worked at Uber and Facebook. He's a product management expert who grew up in the AI era, with not only strong thinking and problem-solving skills but also a natural sensitivity to technological evolution.
His core mission is to drive Walmart's AI transformation comprehensively. We're not going to invest heavily in building computing infrastructure from scratch or developing cutting-edge foundation models, but we must become one of the world's best companies at applying AI.
So Daniel is leading the company toward an AI-driven evolution, reshaping product management, design systems, and all related organizational change management.
At the corporate level, we're very clear about our strategic priorities, and we've allocated dedicated resources and mechanisms to drive this transformation. This is a core focus of our current discussions and efforts.
At the same time, Walmart has 2.1 million employees globally, and we'll provide everyone with all available tools and clearly communicate our expectations for each person's learning and growth. Only then can we truly complete this transformation together. I also believe that during this process, many great ideas and innovations will emerge from the front lines and grassroots.
For example, this morning, I read a suggestion from a Sam's Club associate in the U.S. who wanted us to add a feature to the app. Ideas like this from the front lines will keep coming, and top-down strategies will also advance in parallel, because we're supporting this change with new resource allocation.
Ultimately, this also means the company must operate differently than before. That's the essence of continuous change—it never stops.
Mission Needs to Be Inherited and Developed Long-termism Is the Greatest Certainty
Question: Walmart's culture has always been 'mission-driven,' emphasized by both the founding family and yourself. Has its meaning changed?
McMillon: In 1992, founder Sam Walton set the tone for the company's mission when he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, saying in simple terms: 'We want to prove to the world that people can save money and live better.'
So 'Save money, Live better' has always been our guiding principle. Every day, we work to create value for customers and members. However, as you mentioned, the meaning of 'live better' has indeed evolved over time.
For example, in the mid-2000s, when former Walmart CEO Lee Scott led the company, we began working to become a more sustainable enterprise. That's just one aspect of the mission's expansion.
Today, we're not only focused on helping people save money, but also on saving them time, supporting communities, protecting the planet, and creating value in health.
I think the change is that we have a more specific and deeper understanding of 'live better,' and we're clearer about how we, as a company and as employees, can put it into practice.
Question: Balancing corporate mission and profitability pressures, especially when facing short-term performance, what do you think is most critical? How do you strike that balance?
McMillon: Let's look back at history. About ten years ago, we launched multiple large-scale investment directions almost simultaneously.
For instance, we invested in raising employee wages, and later expanded to benefits beyond pay, like free college education; we invested billions to lower product prices; we invested billions to build our e-commerce business; and we invested in upgrading the company's entire technology architecture.
When I first became CEO, our operating margin was around 6%. But the reality was that all these investments—wage increases, price cuts, e-commerce development, technology upgrades—required substantial ongoing capital.
So the margin later dropped to just over 4%. That decline was actually quite significant. Essentially, it was a deliberate strategic investment, with shareholders bearing the cost. The purpose was clear: to drive the company's transformation and lay the foundation for the long-term future.
Throughout this process, what touched me most was that the Walton family, the board, and the management team stood together. We discussed these major choices, deliberated over plans, and ultimately reached a consensus to accept a decline in short-term profitability.
This was both about positioning the company for the future and never straying from our mission. This long-term consensus and determination, I find very precious.
We didn't pass the cost of these investments on to customers or other parties; the true bearers were our shareholders.
In recent years, as our business model evolved with e-commerce, bringing new revenue streams like Walmart+ membership and advertising, we've been able to gradually restore our operating margin while continuing to maintain low prices and invest in employee wages.
So this cycle lasted quite a long time. I think it allowed us to do two things: first, never forget to fulfill our mission, and second, genuinely complete the company's transformation.
Question: As CEO of the world's largest company, it's interesting that you still wear a Walmart employee badge. How much time do you still spend on the front lines? What's the significance of being on-site?
McMillon: This is very important to me. If there's one tradition Walmart has always upheld, it's that since founder Sam Walton, leaders have always personally visited stores. He even learned to fly a plane just to travel faster between stores.
Today, we have company planes. For example, in the U.S., we often fly from Arkansas to make unannounced visits to Walmart stores and Sam's Clubs. If you occasionally check social media, you might see records of these visits.
In fact, 99% of our visits are unannounced, and even I decide at the last minute, just randomly showing up in a market.
McMillon's Facebook page shares monthly frontline visit updates
We'll walk directly into a Walmart store or Sam's Club, ask 'How's it going?' and then talk directly with associates, whether they're cashiers, associates picking online orders, or others.
Tomorrow, I'll be in another store, and they won't know I'm coming. This is truly a part of my job that I love.
Recently, I visited Mexico, Canada, and China, touring local Sam's Clubs and Walmart stores and talking with associates. Every such interaction teaches me a lot.
After each visit, my to-do list is always longer than before. That's not a burden; it's because insights from the front lines often help us improve the entire company.
Interviewer: Facing diverse evaluations and expectations from the outside world on environmental and social issues, how do you respond to criticism and opinions?
McMillon: Looking back to the early 2000s, when these issues began to enter public consciousness, I described our journey as a 'maturation process.' Like a startup, we initially focused only on customers and associates, and that's how we grew to our current scale.
Later, under the leadership of Lee Scott and founding family member Rob Walton, the company began to realize that with our scale and footprint, we could have a more positive impact on the planet and communities while improving our business.
I often share this story: when I was in charge of Sam's Club, we used to pay someone to haul away the cardboard boxes that piled up in our stores. These boxes were baled and sent off as waste.
But as we learned about landfills, read research, and gradually recognized the responsibility a company of our size could bear, we realized these cardboard boxes had significant value.
So we shifted from 'paying to have them removed' to 'charging for recycling,' because the cardboard itself was worth recycling. Just from that change in mindset, my business saved about $50 million (approximately 350 million RMB) in costs within a year.
Changes like this began to emerge twenty years ago. As the company continues to grow, we keep learning and updating our understanding.
So, whether facing the media, government officials, or responding to external criticism, my attitude is always very pragmatic: Don't you want Walmart to reduce waste? It saves us costs, allows us to lower prices further, and is itself a smart business decision.
All this work—improving the business, serving customers, supporting associates—is equally important. Often, the difference is just the time horizon. Once you start looking at things from a long-term perspective, the logic behind all these actions becomes clear.
At Critical Moments, Be Willing to Delegate Organizational Resilience Is Stronger Than You Think
Question: Can you share what you learned leading Walmart through the pandemic and supply chain crisis?
McMillon: Of course, sharing everything we learned about ourselves and the company during the pandemic would take a long time. But for me, the deepest takeaway is that our associates demonstrated capabilities beyond what we imagined.
Whether in stores, in the supply chain, at Sam's Club, or across all levels of management, their judgment and speed of decision-making deeply impressed me.
Before the pandemic, I thought we were already moving fast, though I was never fully satisfied with our efficiency. But the pandemic pushed everything to another level. Countless decisions had to be made quickly: how to ensure people's safety, how to manage the supply chain, how to assist with testing, and ultimately how to drive vaccinations...
When we all shifted to collaborating via Zoom, the company's internal communication and decision-making pace went from weekly or monthly to daily or weekly. We met every morning to quickly identify the key issues that needed resolution that day. Like everyone else, we didn't have answers at first.
This forced us to delegate more boldly, giving decision-making authority to specific individuals or teams, telling them: 'Tell us tomorrow what you did and why, but don't wait for approval—act now.'
Despite the immense pressure, they made many fast and good decisions. This capability was proven again recently in dealing with tariffs and other issues.
Associates showed excellent emergency decision-making skills. Whether it was quickly adjusting sourcing origins, shifting production resources, or precisely managing timing and process, they did exceptionally well. This year, our inventory management has remained strong, which is crucial for a retail company.
Too much inventory brings extra costs, markdown pressure, and other burdens; too little inventory misses sales opportunities. Facing a complex and volatile situation, they handled it with ease, performing as well as during the pandemic.
I'd like to add one point: for the U.S. business, slightly more than two-thirds of the products we sell are made or grown in the U.S. Although we operate in 19 countries, Walmart U.S. is our largest market, and this ratio provides us with considerable resilience.
The remaining one-third comes from around the world, including China, Mexico, Canada, Vietnam, and over 100 other countries and regions. Our team has managed this diversified supply chain very well.
So, my biggest takeaway is: I trust the team more than ever and am more willing to delegate responsibility to people.
Question: Corporate transformation seems endless, with technology and markets constantly changing. How do you ensure Walmart's transformation isn't just chasing new projects, but truly builds organizational capability for continuous self-renewal?
McMillon: You have to genuinely commit to change. When you asked this, I recalled the situation about twelve years ago when I first became CEO. At that time, our U.S. supercenter (hypermarket) same-store sales were negative, e-commerce was almost negligible, and the international business I previously led faced many challenges.
Regarding strategy and transformation, there was indeed much confusion and uncertainty. My leadership team and I made an early decision: we had to communicate clearly to the entire organization 'what would not change,' because there were so many things that needed to change. If we started discussing all the changes item by item, everyone would feel overwhelmed.
At that time, the message we conveyed to the company was: We firmly believe the mission left by founder Sam Walton is timeless—helping people save money and live better. We believe the four core values passed down are correct, and we expect our culture and behavior to always align with these values.
No matter how the future changes, the Walmart you join will be consistent in 'how we treat people' and 'how we expect leaders to lead their teams.'
By the way, these values include 'Strive for Excellence.' We maintain high standards and high expectations, while also respecting individuals, acting with integrity, and serving customers.
These values won't change. Everything else is open to adjustment. If customers no longer need physical stores in the future, we won't keep them.
The first step in our transformation was to fully catch up with the e-commerce wave and build a real e-commerce business. This process gradually made us realize we had to fundamentally change how we work.
We needed to build 'design' as a core capability, establish product management systems, and introduce key functions that many tech companies have but we lacked.
In the past, many major decisions were driven by operations teams, store managers, and merchandising departments, but in fact, we had to shift our mindset: put customers and members at the center, work backward from their needs, and then build the corresponding technology and business systems.
This led to deeper and more thorough organizational changes than I initially expected. So back to your question, for a large company, the key is to keep yourself 'in a state of readiness for change,' not just change once and be done.
This means continuous learning, updating mindsets, adjusting organizational structures, building new capabilities, and maintaining a faster pace of self-renewal. Only then can we avoid being left behind by the times.
Question: As a leader who has undergone major transformation, looking back, what advice would you give to peers?
McMillon: Trust your instincts.
One thing that strikes me is that many people, after being in a position for a long time, often regret one thing: not moving fast enough. Although many things weren't clear when we first met, I was indeed focused on how to build the e-commerce business, how to leverage the resources we had, including all those physical stores, to turn it into a truly significant business. That period involved heavy investment.
But what I didn't fully realize at the time was that this process would actually drive the entire company to change how it operates. Later, we and the management team gradually understood this and began taking action to make the organization more responsive and essentially more digital.
We often say internally: 'People-led, tech-enabled.' We pursue technological excellence, but we must start with 'people.' Whether it's customers or associates, everything should revolve around people, with technology serving as a tool.
There were many things I hadn't fully figured out then. When I did, I sometimes didn't act fast enough, worrying about others' opinions or whether the organization could handle so much change.
But what I learned later is: organizations are more resilient than we think. You must commit fully and act quickly. When you know deep down that something is right, act on it—don't wait too long.
【Moving Toward the C-End】The 11th China FMCG Conference Date: March 16-18, 2026 Location: Chengdu, China