(Bloomberg)—Walmart Inc.’s top U.S. ecommerce executive is departing less than 18 months after joining the retailer.
Casey Carl will leave at the end of February, the retail giant said in a memo to employees this week. Tom Ward, the senior vice president for last-mile deliveries, will replace Carl as the head of the company’s U.S. ecommerce operations, effective Feb. 1. Walmart is No. 2 in the 2021 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000.
“Continuing the growth of our ecommerce business is critical to our long-term success,” John Furner, the head of Walmart’s U.S. operations, said in the memo. “We have a strong foundation.”
Walmart is making the change while rushing to keep up with Amazon.com Inc. and other rivals in ecommerce sales as more consumer spending shifts online. Walmart reported in earnings filings that U.S. ecommerce sales climbed 15.5% during the nine months ending Oct. 31. Amazon reported in earnings filings that North American sales gained more than 20% during the nine months through Sept. 30.
The exit of Walmart’s ecommerce chief, which the Wall Street Journal previously reported, adds to a string of recent executive departures. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer, which often makes leadership changes shortly before the end of its fiscal year in late January, last week announced the departure of two key U.S. executives: the chief merchandising officer and the chief customer officer.
Carl, a former executive at Target Corp. (No. 6), joined Walmart in September 2020. He took on additional ecommerce responsibilities following the departure about a year ago of Marc Lore, who joined Walmart after the 2016 acquisition of his startup, Jet.com, for $3.3 billion.
In other personnel news:
- The CEO of apparel brand Bonobos announced that she is stepping down. Micky Onvural, who served as CEO of the Walmart-owned company since 2018, is joining teacher-focused insurance company TIAA as chief marketing officer. Onvural joined Bonobos as chief marketing officer there in 2016, a year before Walmart acquired the brand. In 2019, Bonobos founder Andy Dunn left Walmart after serving as senior vice president of digital consumer brands for two years as the retail chain added a number of ecommerce natives like Modcloth and Jet.com.
- Apparel department stores J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (No. 37) added two new hires this month to bolster ecommerce and omnichannel strategies. Sharmeelee Bala is joining as chief information officer from Gap Inc. (No. 19), where she was most recently the head of product engineering. In her new role at J.C. Penney, Bala oversees the company’s IT organization and leads development on a project uniting the retailer’s stores and digital spaces. Katie Mullen, previously of Neiman Marcus (No. 73), is joining as chief digital and transformation officer, leading growth of the ecommerce business as it builds on its omnichannel offerings.
- Health and wellness startup Hims & Hers (No. 424) hired former Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. (No. 28) investor relations vice president Jay Spitzer as the senior vice president of investor relations, just under a year after going public.