Suresh Kumar, who has worked at Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, has been picked by retail giant Walmart as its new CDO/CTO reporting directly to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon.
Sarah Perez filed this report on Kumar for TechCrunch:
Kumar most recently worked at Google, where he served for more than a year as VP and general manager of display, video, app ads and analytics. Prior to that, he was corporate vice president of Cloud Infrastructure and Operations at Microsoft for three and a half years.
However, the experience that likely appeals the most to Walmart is Kumar’s 15 years spent in a variety of positions at Amazon, most recently as VP, Worldwide Retail Systems and Retail Services. He also previously led Amazon’s retail supply chain and inventory management systems.
Earlier in his career, Kumar was a research staff member at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. He holds a PhD in engineering from Princeton and a Bachelor of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.
Under Kumar, Walmart aims to bring together its four technology organizations — Global Business Services, Walmart Labs, Sam’s Club Technology and International technology, the retailer says. Walmart’s U.S., Sam’s Club and International CTOs will report to Kumar, who will set Walmart’s technical strategy. As Global CDO, he will lead the team in building systems to digitally transform Walmart’s business operations, including the use of Walmart’s data to deliver a competitive advantage.
