President, Chief Executive Officer & Director, Walmart
Search every verified C. Mcmillon interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Doug McMillon, President and CEO of Walmart, discussed leadership and the company's direction in a conversation with Chief People Officer Donna Morris. He attributed his leadership philosophy to Sam Walton's book, emphasizing servant leadership, and described the announcement of wage investments for associates as "the best day that I've had working at Walmart." McMillon stated that Walmart's ability to change is often underestimated and that the company's future success depends on its "humanity" and personal interactions, even as it becomes a digital enterprise. He expressed excitement about how artificial intelligence can help Walmart serve customers better by creating more personalized and contextual experiences. On Walmart's Q1 2027 earnings call, McMillon said the company is "probably as excited about the potential of our business today than at any point in time in the last few years." He noted that the company is strengthening its business mix by scaling higher-margin areas like advertising, membership, and marketplace. McMillon reported that consumers in the US are "feeling some pressure" and looking to Walmart for value, with about 7,200 rollbacks in place. He also stated that if the current elevated cost environment persists, Walmart would expect "somewhat higher retail price inflation" in the second quarter and second half of the year.
“The thing that will cause us to win is our humanity. And yeah, we need to learn how to become a digital enterprise, but we understand we're a company made up of 2.2 million associates. and that human interaction in the future will matter. Um, yes, automation will do things that that the humans might not want to do, mun...”
“The fact that that's the thing that people underestimate us underestimate about Walmart right now is that it has an ability to change. They they think it is going to be what it is right now. And in some cases, I might argue most cases, they don't understand what it is right now because it's only been explained to them...”
“The bad news is it's really expensive. It's going to be billions of dollars in investments in associates and it'll be billions of dollars simultaneously and investments and lower prices. And to our board's credit, they said, we agree with that plan and in fact we want you to invest more. But the day that we got to anno...”
“When we at Walmart think of artificial intelligence, the first thing we should think of is growth. Right. Um yes, there will be productivity improvements, there'll be other things that happen, but we want to serve people better. So what I get most excited about is how AI can help us serve customers and members better....”
“When I look at the consumer, especially here in the US, they're telling us they're feeling some pressure and they're looking to Walmart for value. We're continuing to invest in prices, extending the roll backs we started in the second half of last year, and we now have about 7,200 rollbacks in place.”
“We're also becoming AI native. Using AI, we can now serve customer needs that previous technologies could not meet. From making shopping easier and more personalized to expanding the range of shopping occasions and interactions we have with our customers and members. And Sparky, our AI shopping agent, is making this po...”
“We're also strengthening our business mix by scaling higher margin businesses or what we call commerce solutions. These are areas like advertising, membership, and marketplace, which are becoming more meaningful contributors to our overall profitability. These businesses complement our omni channel model and support mo...”
“We're always focused on providing low prices for customers. EDLP is core to who we are. That said, these are real impacts to cost of goods sold for us and our suppliers. And if the current elevated cost environment persist, we'd expect somewhat higher retail price inflation in Q2 and the second half of the year.”
“We are reiterating our full year guidance of constant currency sales growth between 3.5% and 4.5%. Based on Q1 performance at 5.7% and our Q2 outlook of 4 to 5% growth, we'd expect full year sales growth to be toward the upper end of that initial range.”
“We will do our best to keep our prices as low as possible. But given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, we aren't able to absorb all the pressure given the reality of narrow retail margins.”
“If we see a restoration of dramatically higher tariff levels, the impact on our financials could be significant and even jeopardize our ability to grow earnings year over year.”
“We achieved e-commerce profitability both in the US as well as for the global enterprise in Q1 for the first time, an important milestone for our company.”
“We're not fully immune from the financial impacts in the short term. We've done work internally to model various scenarios related to the ongoing trade policy discussions. These scenarios involve making assumptions about how long tariffs persist at certain levels versus coming down to some lower level once bilateral tr...”
“I think it's fair to say, obviously, we're going to use we're going to spend more in share buyback this year than we did last year given that we've already done that one quarter into the year. We'll see where prices are. We need to balance this with both increase in our dividend as well as uh investing in ourselves thr...”
“There are a lot of factors. The team went through a rigorous process to sort that out — things like the cost to list and trading execution — but the ability to participate in the NASDAQ‑100 and to be associated with the brand of NASDAQ given the progress the company's made as it relates to technology is kind of what ro...”
Doug McMillon (IG: @dougmcmillon (https://www.instagram.com/dougmcmillon/) ) is president and chief executive officer of ...
Donna Morris, Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer at Walmart, sits down with Doug McMillon, previous President and CEO of Walmart, to discuss leadership and the future of the company. In this (FOUR)Ward Thinking conversation, they explore how Walmart is evolving to better serve customers and associates while leading at global scale. Save Money. Live Better. Subscribe to Walmart on YouTube: http://bit.ly/1tVy1CI Like Walmart on Facebook: https://walmrt.us/4hfDtuT Follow Walmart on TikTok: https://walmrt.us/3YcyZwl Follow Walmart on X: https://walmrt.us/4fdyPvO Follow Walmart…
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