Walmart hires former Amazon executive on new role

Retail giant Walmart has hired former Amazon exec Suresh Kumar as its new chief technology officer and chief development officer as it aims to compete more with other tech savvy retailers.

Kumar, who will take on the newly expanded role on July 8, has held senior positions in Google, Microsoft and Amazon. He has recently been working at Google where he serves as vice president and general manager of display, video, app ads and analytics and before that, he was corporate vice president of Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure operations.

Before he joined Microsoft, Kumar was with Amazon for 15 years, holding several roles including vice president of technology for retail systems and operations and head of Amazon’s retail supply chain and inventory management systems.

He will report to company CEO Doug McMillion and will be based at the company’s Sunnyvale, California office.

According to Walmart, Kumar is joining the company at a time when it is rapidly transforming its customer and associate experiences.

“The technology of today and tomorrow enables us to serve our customers and associates in ways that weren’t previously possible. We want to take full advantage of those opportunities,” McMillon said.

“Suresh has a unique understanding of the intersection of technology and retail, including supply chain, and has deep experience in advertising, cloud and machine learning,” he said. “And, he has a track record of working in partnership with business teams to drive results.”