Walmart Names New CEO as Retail Moves From Shelves to Software

The world’s newest trillion-dollar company also has a new CEO. And no, it’s not Disney.

And while trillion-dollar market caps might bring to mind visions of big tech hyperscalers, it’s not one of the FAANG cohort either. The business in question is something quite different: the world’s largest retailer, Walmart.

That’s not to say that John Furner, who took the reins as CEO on Sunday (Feb. 1), doesn’t have a vision for the brick-and-mortar giant too dissimilar from the platform-driven growth strategies of other, software-native members of the trillion-dollar club.

A former hourly associate who later ran Walmart U.S., Furner over the weekend succeeded the 59-year-old Doug McMillon, who led Walmart for the past 12 years. In one of his first moves upon taking the role, Furner as new CEO has already announced a leadership reorganization designed to accelerate what Walmart calls its “enterprise platforms.”

These enterprise platforms include Walmart Connect, the retailer’s fast-growing advertising business; Walmart+, its membership program; data products; and Vizio, the smart TV company Walmart acquired to extend its advertising reach into the living room. These businesses will now sit under a global chief growth officer, a role meant to unify monetization, technology and customer engagement across markets.

Platform businesses offer a way to diversify profit streams without abandoning the value proposition. Advertising, data and financial services can grow even when unit sales are flat, as long as engagement remains high. They also create optionality. A retailer that owns its own platforms can adapt more quickly to shifts in consumer behavior, media consumption or regulatory constraints.

See also: Walmart Bets on Healthcare as Amazon Swings Hard at Grocery

A CEO for the Platform Era

Taken at a sector-level view, the repositioning of Walmart’s business posture toward technology-led ecosystems may end up being one of the clearest signals yet that the future of mass retail could be defined less by shelves and supply chains than by platforms, data and software.

But retailers do not become software businesses by abandoning their core operations. They do it by embedding technology into those operations so deeply that platforms become inseparable from the underlying retail engine.

The risk, of course, is execution. Software businesses demand different talent, incentives and cultures than traditional retail operations. Integrating a smart TV company, scaling global ad products and building payments infrastructure are complex undertakings.

And while Furner is not an obvious “tech CEO” in the Silicon Valley sense, in many ways he could prove to be a right-fit “tech CEO” in the Walmart sense. His career rose through Walmart’s international and U.S. businesses, running large operating units and grappling with the day-to-day realities of stores, labor, pricing and supply chains. Now, he is being tasked with rising to the challenge of meeting the tension between how to preserve Walmart’s cost discipline and everyday-low-price promise while layering on higher-margin digital capabilities.

By reorganizing leadership around enterprise platforms rather than around traditional channels or geographies, Furner could be signaling that Walmart sees these businesses not as side hustles, but as central profit engines. Advertising, memberships, data and payments now represent first-class strategic priorities for the 21st century that may work best when coordinated globally.

As covered here Monday (Feb. 2), Walmart’s paid membership program continued to see double-digit growth in January and ended the month with 28.4 million members. Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey credited faster delivery, improved accuracy and the launch of the OnePay credit card, which offers 5% cashback on Walmart purchases.

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Winning Both Carts: Millennials Drive Surge in Having Amazon Prime & Walmart+ Subscriptions” found that the number of consumers holding subscriptions for both Amazon and Walmart member loyalty subscriptions nearly doubled between 2021 and early 2025.

Read more: Economic Pressures Split the Generations as Each Rethinks the Basics

Retail Realities Are Under Pressure From a Squeezed Consumer

Crucially, Walmart’s evolution toward technology-led ecosystems is coming at a moment when consumers are squeezed, costs are high and traditional levers of margin expansion are under pressure.

“Most Americans probably don’t remember the exact inflation rate last year. But they remember that the footlong they once paid 5 dollars for is now between ten and fourteen bucks,” PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster recently wrote. “They remember when a fast-food meal cost a lot less than a movie ticket. … Those mental price anchors are how consumers track affordability.”

PepsiCo, for example, on Tuesday (Feb. 3) announced it was moving to lower prices on some of its best-known snack brands, citing mounting consumer affordability concerns.

But that’s also why one of Walmart’s more interesting growth bets may be OnePay, a financial app being built into shopping journeys online and in stores, which could serve as an interesting way to help manage consumer confidence hazards.

The tradeoff is customer experience versus control. Walmart still doesn’t accept Apple Pay, pushing shoppers to Walmart Pay and app-based Scan & Go instead.

But in an era of economic anxiety, confidence is currency. Consumers don’t just want lower prices; they want clarity about what they can afford, how to budget and how to smooth volatility. If Walmart can provide consumers that without ever surfacing a need to leave its own ecosystem, then the retailer might just have a head start on the next phase of retail competition.