This week on the Be Epic podcast, Brent sits down with Judith McKenna, former president and CEO of Walmart International. They begin with Judith sharing her career journey from law school to holding numerous roles within Asda and Walmart, culminating as head of Walmart's international business across 19 countries. She discusses the importance of building empowering teams and relating to diverse cultures globally. Brent and Judith also explore the changing retail landscape and priorities around continued growth balanced with preserving quality of life. Listeners gain insights into Judith's people-focused leadership perspective developed over decades navigating massive transformation in the industry.

Be a team, player. And if you can set out

with that, from day one, it's incredible. I have this phrase,

which is, it's amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care

who gets the credit.

Welcome to the be epic podcast, brought to you

by the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of

Arkansas. I'm your host, Brent Williams. Together, we'll

explore the dynamic landscape of business, and uncover the

strategies, insights and stories that drive business today.

Today, I have with me, Judith McKenna. And Judith was recently

retired as president, CEO of Walmart International, amongst

many other things. But Judith, thank you for joining us today.

Thank you for having me here. today. I'm

excited to spend the day with all of you and to learn more

about the college.

Yeah, well, today, you know, in addition to

to the role I just mentioned, you're also you've recently

joined the board of Unilever, wonderful company, and today,

you're serving as our Executive in Residence. So and investing

in your time in our students. We're excited to have you here.

Thank you very much indeed, I'm looking forward

to it.

I want to spend a little time today talking

about retail, of course, and where retail is going. I think

you've got a pretty unique vantage point of having run a

global business across 19 countries, I believe, when you

when you left Walmart a few months ago. So I want to spend

some time digging into that I want to dig into what you've

learned along the way, which is I'm sure what you're going to be

sharing with our students today. But maybe first, for our

listeners, a little bit about your background. I think you, I

think you have an accounting background as an undergraduate

and started with KPMG. But I'll let you tell us more.

Well, actually, my undergraduate is law,

it is? Ok

So I'm law, and then I went into accountancy

while I figured out what I wanted to do and worked for KPMG

discover discovered a quite a truth early on that math isn't

my strong point. But still qualified, I am qualified which

as you find the rest of the story is mildly amusing, went in

from there and eventually joined a client which had been working

at which was Allied Domecq and something called the Tetley pub

company, which is a brewing and pub owning

business which is utterly fascinating,

Really?

incredibly traditional business, incredibly fascinating as your

first role in industry as you come out of a profession. And I

learned so much about people and what we did there. But then I

moved, actually, I lost my job, the company restructured, I was

made redundant, I had a nine month old baby at the time, and

I was like, What am I gonna do? I, you know, I don't know. And

there was a business called Asda, which is one of the UK

supermarkets, one of the biggest supermarkets in the UK. And they

were literally across the road from where I'd been working. And

the decision that I made to go there was I only need to do it

for about a year in order to get my feet on the ground, because

it's a bit of a shock to the system, what had happened. And

27 years later, I'm still here. So don't ever take career advice

from me about what to do. So I started at Asda.

I'll take advice on resilience. How about that?

It's all part of it. Yeah. You know, these

journeys, I always described them as almost the sliding door

moments in life and in careers and you choose your attitude as

you move through those sliding doors, however it plays out. And

so I started at Asda, I started running a really small team in

the kind of accounting services department, and worked my way

through that. And ultimately, Walmart came along and bought

us. And we were like, Oh, we were in the middle of another

deal beforehand. And they came in and swooped Asda from that,

continued to work in finance. And I eventually became the CFO,

which is quite amusing. If you think about my earlier comments

about maths may not be my strong point. Interesting point about

finance. You have to be competent enough at the maths,

but it's way more than that. And it's also massively about people

as well. So I was the CFO for nearly a decade. But while I was

doing that, I was the kind of person that said, Oh, yes, you

know, so and so's left from this function. I'll I'll run that for

a while. So I run on HR for a while, I run technology for a

while. I ran supply chain for a bit. I did just about everything

except merchandising there, and even did a little bit of

operations. We did a deal to buy some shops from a business

called Neto. And we did all of the, I did the diligence, the

m&a and everything. We got to the end of that and I was like,

I don't want somebody else to run this. So I said, can I run

these stores because they're much different format to the

ones we had. They went yeah, just just for a while until we

figure everything out. But you're not keeping them. I was

like, okay, and then their chief operating officer opportunity

came up. They didn't finance being a CFO for a decade was

kind of learning these kind of operating ropes. And I said, I'd

stick my hand up and like, I'll do it. And they said, well, if

you do this one, you have to give up finance. You can't do

both. And I said, well, what's the worst that could happen? And

I did it. And so I did Chief Operating Officer for Asda for

just under three years. And then I made the decision to come over

to the US with Walmart, for an experience brought my family, I

have two grown up kids. And my husband, and I came only for two

years. I knew exactly when I was going home, I knew the dates the

kids were going back into school. And that was it, no

question about it. And I moved into international to be the

head of strategy, m&a, and business development in the

international business, really big challenge for me, but I've

only done it for about a year when Doug McMillon moved to be

the CEO of Walmart, Inc. and he said, would you mind coming into

the US and having a quick look and seeing two things? One is we

have neighborhood markets, which are really just starting to grow

and would you operate those for a period of time? And would you

have a look at this intersection of digital and physical, we

think there is something in the intersection, the word

omnichannel hadn't even been created at that point. And I

would tell you, there was less of an intersection and more of

two parallel paths at that stage that were running. So I started

to do that there was a whole pile of change. Again, remember,

my plan was to go home on you may date. And by a series of

events, including the CEO of Walmart US changing, I ended up

becoming the Chief Operating Officer of Walmart US which is

1.2 million people, four and a half 1000 stores and a small

British accountant from the north of England categorically

Oh the irony

running knows, it's the best job in the world.

It was fantastic. Did that for about three years. Note never

got home back to the UK at this point.

Still here. By the way,

Still here, we'd abandoned all hope of that

completely. And I'm incredibly grateful for those

opportunities. And those moments, the sliding doors, that

decisions worked out as we went through them. And then six years

ago, just over six news seven years ago, now I became the CEO

of Walmart International, and operated that until my

retirement on the 31st of January this year.

What a what a career thus far and starting

chapter two. It sounds like at this point. You know, Judith, I

mean, what you just said, I can't remember exactly the way

you said it. But you know, when Doug McMillon assumes the CEO

role and says, Come over and like let's look at this

intersection of digital and physical. That was a pretty

historical moment. You may not have known it at the time. But

my goodness,

Yeah, it was. I think it was clear. So in the UK

had this advantage because in the UK, we'd operated online

grocery shopping for a long time, it had taken us years to

create a model that we thought could ultimately work and we'd

had a lot of failures along the way. But I ran the grocery

online grocery teams when I was Chief Operating Officer over

there. And I'd watched it grow up. And it was a real I can

remember the launch of grocery shopping right back and it would

have been like eight or nine years previous to all of that,

probably longer. And I can remember the presentation that

the lady she was called Sheena Ford, who was making about why

we should invest in online shopping. And it's a picture of

a dinosaur in the front of this presentation. And it said eat

lunch or be lunch. And it's always stuck with me. And when

we came to the US, I know I knew that the US was already looking

it got two stores, it was trying some things in it had been to

France, it had seen the French models of cliques drive throughs

and do that. And the rest really was just actually if we can make

people work together and understand that this is not a

bad thing. It's a good thing. And everybody can play a part in

it. So that transformation was as much about getting people's

mindsets transformed as it ever was fiscally what we did, and

that's at both ends, which was stores and people from that side

of it saying this is cannibalizing our business aid,

why would we do this people are going to stop coming in shops.

And then E commerce folks saying no the world is going to be an

online. We're not going to need this same number of stores are

not going to operate the same way. As we now know history. is

written, and the sweet spot is in the middle. But we just

started, we just started with online pickup. We didn't do

delivery, because myself and a guy called Mark Ibbotson had

promised ourselves that if we ever got a chance to start over,

he and I'd worked on it in the UK, we would start with pickup

and then move to delivery, who in the world gets a chance to

redo it all over again, and at the world's largest retailer. So

that is why pickup was the first thing we did not delivery until

we built the muscle about how to pick and then we could expand

into the delivery later.

Interesting

Yeah, when you said that, like I can see the

That makes it sound like it was really easy,

really quick thing to do. It really wasn't. And it was, it

was like a ringside seat actually being in the ring, not

just the seat to watching a business mind shift in terms of

what was important, and how you could get growth from this. And

I'll tell you a funny side story. Some people who know

Walmart's around, not just locally, you'll know that when

we very first started there was big orange pickup signs on the

corners of Walmart's we painted them bright orange, and it said

That's right.

pick up on them. People have often asked like, you know, how

did you think about the branding color? How did you do that? For

orange sign in my mind. And it's it's a reminder of sometimes

Hard, but simple.

all of those students who are still studying branding and how

you have to be really thoughtful about it, you do. But in that

particular cases, we just wanted people to see it. Because nobody

knew what on earth it meant or what it was or where to go. So

we painted them bright orange and hope for the best. As it

turns out, it worked out beautifully. But it's now so

embedded. You don't need to do that anymore. You can just it's

just warm up.

That's exactly right.

Well, as your as you've now experienced both US,

well, UK, US and then global. And you've been there at a

things can be really simple.

pretty historical moment and helped Walmart to really build

out the way its omni channel strategy and capabilities. What

do you see changing now that interests you, you know, whether

that's in pockets across the world? Or? Yeah, anything about

the way that you see retail and commerce changing?

Yeah, I think that what I love, as I think

everybody has accepted that the model is Omni, and that there is

a place for stores, in whatever that future looks like. Because

people didn't always believe that. And I firmly have always

believed it. And they're an incredible asset, if run

correctly, when you're an online retailer, as well. So I see

that, I think there will be less in terms of the physical flow of

what happens, it might be how you get your product will change

in the future. So I think the work that Walmart is doing, for

example, on drones is fascinating that how does last

mile continue to develop automated vehicles, drones, that

that is a fascinating area, which could give even more

access to people and working that. But I think what's really

going to happen and you've got quite a way into this without

talking about AI. And Gen AI is how do retailers personalize in

the future, show you things of interest to you, without cutting

you off from a breadth of display that you will also want

to be able to browse. And it's interesting when people shop

online as many people know, sometimes you go in to buy a

product, you know what you want, and sometimes you just want to

look and the better that we get at doing those things, serving

up experiences to people I think it's gonna be interesting. I do

also think there is some trends coming through which will affect

so wellness, health. People want to know where products come

from, what does that look like? I think that opens up a whole

nother set of opportunities as well in retail and supplies

chains for retail. But I when I look around the world, what I do

get excited about in retail is product development. We talk we

talk about retail we always talk about you know, tech and how

it's going to change products and products around the world.

So for you I'll take one particular category. Today I

look at the UK and what we would call ready meals convenience

food is massive. It is a huge part of the shopping basket, way

more underdeveloped in the US opportunity in those kind of

areas. So I think product development is something that's

really interesting as well.

So products that excite customers. And and then

also, you know, one thing you said about the the development

of the Omni experiences, while using AI generative AI

potentially to better serve up to me what I need and want, it

is still shopping, you know, and there's still some excitement in

that.

Yeah. And I, you know, I do upset some people, I

say this fundamentally, we buy things, we move things, we show

people things, we sell things. Everything else around, that is

the technology that enables a lot of that. Now, I do think as

you start to serve up those personalized kind of experiences

and everything else, their risk of that is data and trust.

Because you know, what, people and the people who get this

right, will be those who make me feel this is an experience that

I'm in no way, no, my data isn't being used for something, I

wouldn't want it to be used, but I trust you with my data. And

that relationship works for both of us. And that I think is going

to be increasingly important as well.

Well one thing I've noticed Judith that I feel

like at least you do really well is you take really complicated

things and actually make them a little simpler so that someone

can get their head around them. How did you? How did you take

that skill, or other skills, and now move from the US from the UK

to the US. And now all of a sudden, you know, you're

managing a business that's in 19, 20 countries.

Yeah, I should probably not let you into the

secret of one of the reasons I tried to do that is I have to

understand it, in business, as you come up, you one of the

things that's brilliant about is you will get involved and

engaged in things that you have no experience of, and that could

be healthcare, it could be financial services. Now the big

trends are things that are happening. You I can't pretend

to be an expert. So for me to be able to understand that and make

sure is there the right guard rails? Are we thinking about

this the right way? Should we make investments, I need for

myself to be able to boil it down to what are the principles

of this? And that concept of the principles of something if you

get to that, everything else is variants of that. And if there's

a groundbreaking disruptive model that does something

differently, understand what that is. And that is a universal

skill, like anywhere, and there are people who do it even better

than I do that complex problems. And they explain it to me. Oh,

that's what you meant. And the translation, therefore, between

the UK and the US was relatively straightforward from that.

Although I think some people when I came over, they would

still say this, if you talk to anybody is I asked too many

questions. Like I am Mrs. Questions. And the reason for

that is because that's how I understand. And as I process

that information, I can then think about how do I create

models in my head, for how things work, the biggest

difference between moving from the UK to the US was the

language, completely divided by a common language. It was that

was by far the hardest thing. And I grew up with American TV,

because we used to get all of the shows, I'm not gonna tell

you which ones because it'll age me horribly. But like had some

of it, but some of my phraseology just didn't work

here. Can you can you imagine standing on stage at the year

beginning meeting for Walmart in front of all of their store

managers. And I'm saying something, and the whole of the

audience is just looking at me. We have no idea what you just

said. Like that doesn't translate at all.

That's funny. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense.

And once you say it, but now, but now so you know that you had

to do that here. How do you do that across 19, 20 countries? I

think earlier, when we were talking, you said something

about you felt like one really important thing about running a

global business is that? Yeah, I don't know exactly how you said

it. But you have to be local in some way.

Yeah. And I'm passionate about this, which is,

I believe the way to be successfully successful locally.

It globally is to think local. That doesn't mean you're not

global. That doesn't mean that you can't bring all of the

advantages of being global. There are some things that are

non negotiable, and ethics and compliance and those areas that

should be global. But how will you understand the customer?

That's a local customer. That's a local team. Now, I also

believe that customers are more alike around the world than they

are different. But once you have that, as a central principle,

that closest to the customer, we have to be able to localize the

further up the pipe you go, the more global we should become.

That actually gives you for me quite a good blueprint for how

you operate a global business. The phrase I use in the strategy

for Walmart international that I had was strong local businesses

powered by Walmart. So for me, that is a market as a business

in a market that is independently strong in that

market, it's close to its customer, it can take the right

decisions. It knows its competition, it adapts to that.

But the powered by Walmart means that it is actually it has an

advantage, because it is part of the Walmart family. And Walmart

gets something in return from that business as well. And that

can be innovation sharing, the more that you can do the same,

the better, undoubtedly, but you have to know where those lines

are. So I'm a great believer in kind of a multi local model. In

some ways. The biggest thing when you start to translate

anything globally, for me is culture. And you have to

understand different cultures, you have to understand the

nuances of those cultures. People generally want the same

things. They have the same hopes, fears and dreams.

However, the context around them might be slightly different. So

not going to market and saying here are all of the things I

know and I believe, say, let me understand first. And then let's

figure out how we get better the best of both worlds here to

create that kind of local model that's still global.

Is this where I think you've called yourself a

moment ago, Mrs. Questions. I assume that that was a

tremendous if that's the way you think in the way you've learned,

I assume that was a tremendous advantage as you go into the

market, spend time there. Ask questions and listen, is it that

simple? Yes.

And by the way, that's no different than US. So

when I was running the US operations, it was the same

thing, walk stores, just ask questions, get people to tell

you what was happening. And just, you know, the simplest

question, what's happening in your day to day? Hey, what's

working well, tell me, do you have any ideas how we could make

this better? That that's kind of a store conversation. But

culturally, I can remember going into India. And I'd been much

earlier in my career, and then went back when I went into the

international role. And I, one of the things I said to the

team, so what would you recommend I read and the team's

in rather than me buying books here, the teams there gave me

three or four books and said, read these if you want to even

start to understand which by the way, you'll never be able to be

there. But it will give you a grounding for it. And then I'd

run some listening sessions, I just get people to talk to me,

just tell me what you do. Tell me how does family life to work

life work? How do families behave at home? Tell me those

things. And of course, everyone's different, you know,

it's a multitude of states there. Same thing, same as a US

actually, everything's got its own rituals, and kind of rhythm

to it can't know it all, you can know enough to be culturally

adept, and respectful. And I think respect is an incredibly

important part of it.

I've followed you on LinkedIn for some time

known about your career. And one thing I've noticed, I think I've

noticed hope, I'm hope I've interpreted this correctly,

you're passionate about teams and building teams, and building

teams that function at a high level, maybe kind of where did

that come from in you and like, any tips that you would have

like, well, you know, I'm sure you've made some mistakes and

had some great successes. What do you learn from that?

Yeah, I am passionate about teams. And I

think I think it comes from a couple of different places. One

is, I've worked in good teams, and I've worked in bad teams.

And the difference in those, you know, one of these people, like

if I ever get to a place where I run a team, they're the things I

won't do, and then things I will do. And so part of it was that,

and then I just I enjoy seeing people develop. That's critical

to me. And frankly, I can't do it on my own. Like I'm not

bright enough. There's not enough hours in the day. And

there's always somebody that knows more than me and has a

better idea than I do. So if you can get people to do that, what

they can do that you can't do, and you make it a relationship

where everybody grows, then that's a win win, and why

wouldn't you? And maybe some of it, I haven't really thought

about it this way, but maybe some of it comes back to the

fact that I am not the best accountant in the world. Like

I'm not bad. I'm fine. But I'm never going to be a superstar at

it so you have to build a team with superstars in it, but

they'll only be a superstar in your team and want to be in your

team. If you treat them well, and the team is successful. So

all of these threads start to come together. And life's too

short to not have fun as well. Life is too short not to have

fun and creating some fun and some energy means you go home

yourself in a better place as you hope everybody goes back in

a better place as well. So the advice I would, you know, it's

interesting, when I break down advice, one of the things I

always say is be a team player, be a team, player, and if you

can set out with that in day one, it's incredible, I have

this phrase, which is it's amazing what you can accomplish

if you don't care who gets the credit. And that is a mantra

that I have tried to live by, I will hopefully be the first to

put somebody on a pedestal and say, look at what they did, they

did a brilliant job with this. In a meeting, you know, there's

some where you've got to be careful as to who's in there.

But the majority, like, listen to this person, like they're the

ones who know this. Now you're also their safety net. As

they're learning to do that, because it's scary the first

time you have to present something or do something so and

the first to have high expectations. And if you ask

somebody for a list of my attributes, I'm sure high

expectations would be on there. And I don't always get it right.

Sometimes they're too I don't think I'm sorry, I'd correct

that. I don't think you never have to higher expectations. How

I bring people along is sometimes has been one of my

weak spots that I've consistently had to work on. At

the same time, making sure that you have a really diverse team,

that all understands that part in it. It's critical.

And so fun to build a team like that, lead it

and then watch those people thrive. Isn't it?

Yes, it is great seeing your team here. And

you're applying all of those same principles. We had some

time together with your team, and there are smiles around the

table as an energy about people that matters.

It does matter. Totally agree. Well, we've

touched a good bit on probably what is my final question, but

I'll ask if there's one other thing, maybe. So when you think

about the Walton College 1000s of students here, most of them

are young people that are about to start their first job. If if

you just had to give one piece of advice to that graduating

senior, from what you've learned, what would it be?

I'm always challenged when somebody says

give me one piece of advice. But I will try to follow that.

I'll give you two or three,

Well, thank you, I would have probably done them

anyway.

That's what I thought

I'm gonna get like, there is one basic thing

that you're going to think is hilarious, which gets, you have

to work hard.

I and I can give you all of the advice in the

Yeah,

world. But if you're not prepared to work hard, then

that's one of the fundamentals of it. That doesn't mean you

can't have free time. That doesn't mean you can't make

choices in life. But you do have to really apply yourself to

whatever it is that you do. The second thing that I would say is

find something that brings you joy that you can be passionate

about. And that might not be your first job. It could be your

second or your third or your fourth. But you'll take

experiences along the way as you do that. And it's not by not

talking about having things that find you find joy in a job that

you find joy in, I don't mean every day is going to be

rainbows and sparkles, like that is not what I mean, you'll have

bad days, you'll actually do jobs that are not right for you.

I've had plenty of them along the way. But maybe you believe

in what the company does. And you know, you're getting

experience and you can do that. So be find passion and joy and

energy from what it is you choose to do. And finally be a

student of whatever business it is. Sam Waltons famous line, be

a student of the business used to tell everybody the store

managers that everybody that I believe that and my natural

curiosity, which would also be on the list of people's things

and what they said about me means that I am always a student

of whatever it is that I'm doing, and they're the best

pieces. But yeah, they want a future an opportunity in front

of folks that are graduating from here. It's really exciting.

My own son is about to graduate this year and seeing that and I

want to say that the challenges that come with that. And the

stress that comes with that, too. Maybe one of the things is

be resilient. You mentioned that word earlier. Be resilient. If

it doesn't work out first time, there's a second time and a

third time and a fourth time, your resilience will see you

through so much.

I'm so excited for the students and what what

the rest of their careers gonna look like. But you're right,

these careers in life isn't linear, right? And embrace that

and take joy in it and but going back to your first point, work

hard.

Yeah.

Well, Judith, thank you for being Executive in

Residence today at the Sam M. Walton College of Business.

Thank you for just giving your time to our students and, and

teaching us and making us better.

No, thank you. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I've

enjoyed the conversation and just, you know, huge good luck

to everybody who is graduating always on their journey towards

that I wish you all good things for the future.

Thanks, Judith.

Thank you.

On behalf of the Walton College thank you for

joining us for this captivating conversation. To stay connected

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