Sam's Club CEO started her career as a Walmart intern

Fortune
36 followers
Nov 1, 2026
You started at Walmart as an intern
in the real estate department in 1997 and 29 years
later you are the CEO of Sam's Club.
I want to know what that intern in 97 thought
her career path was going to look like.
It's interesting because that intern thought she would work
for Walmart while she was an
intern and then she'd go off and be a lawyer somewhere.
I left after I graduated from law school
for three months while I took the bar.
But the plan wasn't to go back.
The plan was to practice law.
And the person who hired me called and said,
are you ready to come back?
And I said, no.
And she called me every day for two weeks until I came back.
The first job I came back to was in real estate.
I spent about 10 years there.
And then I went to Sam's Club because the leadership team
says you should work in merchandising.
The leader of Sam's Club at the time
said you should be a merchant.
And I said, no.
Second time, he said, you should be a merchant.
This guy's going places, I probably better listen to him.
That was Doug McMillan.
So I went to merchandising at Sam's Club
and I spent a couple of years there.
I worked in merchandising in Walmart US for about 10 years
and then did a couple of other assignments outside of that.
Then went back to merchandising.
Ended up being the chief merchant
of Walmart US Merchandising until February
when I started this job.
