Dive Brief:
- Walmart has named Chief Revenue Officer Seth Dallaire as its chief growth officer of Walmart U.S., Walmart U.S. President and CEO John Furner said in an employee memo provided to Grocery Dive by the company.
- Dallaire will head up an expanded division at Walmart that also includes the product, marketing and design teams. The memo also noted that Walmart U.S. Chief Product Officer Jon Alferness is leaving the company.
- The changes come as Walmart transitions its business model from a focus on stores to omnichannel and focuses on accelerating growth for specific teams, the memo said.
Dive Insight:
As chief revenue officer, Dallaire has overseen a division with rapid growth in its retail media, membership program and data businesses.
Last quarter, Walmart+ memberships were up double digits, Walmart Connect grew 30% and Walmart Data Ventures increased its client base by nearly 200% compared to last year, the memo noted.
“[T]here are significant benefits of aligning capabilities that help us bring a better experience to life for customers. With that, we've decided to further align key capabilities under Seth’s leadership,” Furner said in the memo.
Now, Dallaire will oversee a new group that includes his revenue division along with additional, realigned teams. Prior to joining Walmart in 2021, Dallaire served as Instacart’s chief revenue officer and also held roles at Amazon, Yahoo! and Microsoft, according to this Walmart bio.
“By appointing Seth as our Chief Growth Officer, we are creating the ability to serve our customers uniquely and individually based on their lifestyles – enabling them to enjoy benefits we have built across the entire business,” Furner said.
The U.S. marketing and design teams, led by Chief Marketing Officer William White and Senior Vice President of Design Valerie Casey, respectively, will also now directly report to Dallaire, Furner said.
Bringing marketing into the new group headed by Dallaire will allow the team to “better tie customer growth and loyalty to financial outcomes while further capitalizing on data, customer insights and identity,” Furner wrote, adding that bringing design under the new group will allow that team to create “impactful experiences for our omni customers, associates and partners.”
Alferness will continue with Walmart in an advisory role through the end of the year. He joined Walmart as chief product officer at the end of 2022, according to this LinkedIn, bringing over 20 years of experience in the Silicon Valley product and technology space.
Walmart noted that the product team will report directly to Dallaire as the company works to fill the leadership position.
