LS International speaks with Walmart eCommerce’s VP of Digital Acceleration, Kate Pearson.
We discuss with Kate about how an army background has contributed to her career in business. Being someone who’s managed big teams in traditional Retail but is currently working on projects that are cutting edge, she’s developed a leadership style that’s enabled her to be successful in very diverse set ups, from the Army to Retail, Logistics and Strategy. “Many people think of the military as a command and control leadership style, but the military really encourages leadership development and is very influential on how we think about leadership in Business. I learnt how to motivate and develop future leaders and grow talent”.
Daniel: I’m Daniel Torres Dwyer welcome to a new edition of our career success podcast. Today, we’ll be joined by Kate Pearson, Vice-president Digital Acceleration for Walmart eCommerce. In this role she leads efforts to deliver a new ways to serve the blended customer at scale for Walmart US. She previously held leadership roles another large with that organization after beginning her career as an officer in the U. S. army. Hi Kate thanks for being here with us today.
Kate: My pleasure, thanks for inviting me.
Daniel: So look, Kate, you started your career in the army which is something that we see which is something we see sometimes, especially in the U. S., what leadership style did you learn in the army?
Kate: That’s a great question Daniel. You know, I think many people when they think about the military, they think about somebody that might lead with a very command and control type leadership style. And I’d say that I learned a great deal of discipline in the military and structure. But one of the things that many folks don’t know from the outside is that the military really encourages leadership development and was influential. In fact, at least in the United States, on how we think about leadership in the business environment. So, I learned from an early age how to motivate folks, how to develop future leaders and how to grow talent and so I think that while I do like discipline and order and structure I think part of my leadership style is developing folks in and encouraging them to grow in their careers.
Daniel: Okay, very interesting, and how has that added value to the rest of your career?
Kate: Yes, I think the elements of kind of the discipline aspect had helped with ensuring delivery and high accountability. So that helped with ensuring that you have the goals that have been set in front of me, are able to be accomplished. But the other thing is that I have this really, same mindset of developing talent and over the years have developed an incredible network of leaders that I’ve had the pleasure of working with and now I get to see do incredible things in other organizations as well. So, it it’s just been a wonderful blessing to have this network based on developing talent.
Daniel: Aha, okay, great. Look let’s switch into the current industry you’re in which is Retail, specifically e-commence. And you’re working at Walmart, which is a traditional retailer, has had to make some major changes in order to keep up to speed with the changes happening in the retail sector. In your experience so far what would be the top three innovation that you driven to helping in this transformation from traditional retail to what it’s generally called Omni-channel?
Kate: Well Daniel my background is clearly in logistics and operations. So, my first role at Walmart was to build a fulfillment center network and in that we investigated a lot of mechanisms to make a world class fulfillment network and had the opportunity to build from the ground up. One of the really interesting things that I helped lead was putting robotics into some of our fulfillment centers to automate pick modules and other pieces of the, that are traditionally more about a manual or physical delivery system. So, that was a really neat thing that I did right out of the gate.
The next thing that was fascinating in the second role that I had at Walmart was to look at really bending the curve in terms of technology with last mile. So, we had a partnership we kicked off with both the car systems Uber and Lift and created the last mile delivery mechanism and so really thinking about how to take advantage of and help kind of defray costs of the last mile expense into delivery.
And now the current role that I have is customer facing in store technology and so there’s a lot of interesting experimentation that were involved in: to look at internet things, looking at kiosks, looking at AR technology and to just changing the paradigm of what the store looks like today.
Daniel: Okay, very interesting. And, for you personally as a professional what is exciting for you to be in E-commerce?
Kate: Absolutely, so I’ve been in retail for about fifteen years and I’ll tell this: the pace at which we are moving is absolutely staggering. I have always been and had roles where we need to move very quickly and we need to be on our feet in terms of delivering things and putting the future forward into today and I would tell you that it is just incredible, you blink and so much happens, so I think that for me is just the exciting part of what we’re doing. So, constant learning, constant change and really just adapting as quickly to what the future holds.
Daniel: Aha! Okay, very interesting and further to this, actually, a part of the excitement is probably building up new things. In the next five year what do you see are going to be the big changes or transformations? Either both in Walmart or in retail as a whole?
Kate: Yes, I would say that we’re at a really fascinating place in retail. There’s been a lot of news coverage about the industry and about kind of the depth of retail or the decay of brick and mortar and what I’d share is that for organizations including my own, that are not embracing actively change and really looking at what they can be doing immediately to either maintain pace or leap frog in terms of technology are going to be left behind. So, I think there’s going to be kind of a bifurcation where some organizations that can’t adapt quickly in and become not as relevant to the consumer that demanding more and more will begin to decay even faster and I think those that get it and are very active in changing the core of how they function as an organization like Walmart is going through and turn our stores into more than experience center where we delight folks with interesting interactive ways that the store becomes the choice that people want to go to and not have to go to, is what I see in five years. So, really focused on customer experience in the stores and making it a delight hearing something they enjoy going to is where I would see retail we are with you recount five years.
Daniel: Okay, Okay. And you mentioned before that you actually started your career in the army and then in logistics.
Daniel:So you’ve been from logistics into a more general management type of role. We normally see in the industry people that are Generals Managers coming from other functions project such as marketing, sales, finance or, for example, in retail, from store management. What value do you see in that starting supply chain then become a general manager?
Kate: Yeah, what I would say is a couple of things I think there are two elements that at least in my experience have helped me. So, one, as a fairly junior level, because I was responsible for logistics, I had that for a view, if you will, of the end to end system from a physical standpoint. And even though I was a junior in my career I was looking across a business at more of a more of an enterprise level and I think having a systems orientation that creates has been really helpful for me to be able to think about the business in much broader terms than level of the organization I was in and I think that’s one. And then I think the second thing is that in logistics, supply chain, those professionals and myself are very, very aware that we are a cost center to the organization. We are not typically delivering top line revenue and so we are very thoughtful about the P&L and how the potential negative impact we can have to profit. And so really having that PNL orientation has helped to really understand the whole business because you understand, one of the lines on the bottom side of the P&L so intimately.
Daniel: Really interesting Kate. I think that this information will be very interesting to our listeners. Thanks for joining us and thanks to all our listeners and see you in the next edition of our careers podcast.
Kate: My pleasure and I appreciate the time today and thank you to all the listeners as well.