After studying marketing management at the University of Arkansas, Furner rose through the ranks at Walmart from store manager to district manager and buyer, then on the corporate side as divisional general manager, and VP of global sourcing. He even spent two years in Shenzhen with Walmart China running merchandising and marketing.
Before overseeing Walmart U.S., Furner was CEO of Sam’s Club.
On his way out the door, McMillon also gave credit to Furner, who he said he has worked closely with for 20 years.
Even as AI threatens the jobs of workers across industries, Furner has said its employee count over the coming five years will remain steady even if workers are more productive. The jobs that do disappear will be replaced with new positions within the company, he added.
Part of Furner’s management philosophy may have been influenced in part by his family and early experiences. Working on the farm with his grandfather as a child, Furner learned the value of hard work.
His grandfather’s hands-on approach also applied to solving problems. When he needed something, Furner’s grandfather, who he said was a product of the Great Depression, preferred to piece together a solution by hand instead of buying something.
“In a business, there’s so many unique situations that just land on you that there may not be a clear answer, but between your team, your resources, American ingenuity and creativity—There’s probably a way to solve it,” he said.
Then, when the company was hit with an unprecedented challenge in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic, Furner helped the company beef up its supply chain and fulfillment centers to meet the moment.
As he told Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the National Retail Federation in 2020, Walmart reshaped it business, deprioritizing optical and auto-care centers while investing in its grocery business to meet demand from what he called the “stock-up phase,” where customers rushed to build up their supply of everything from toilet paper to consumables.
Then, the company invested deeply in fulfillment centers as well as pick-up and delivery services to adapt to the “work from home” era and skyrocketing online purchases.
As a result, net sales grew in both 2020 and 2021, despite the pandemic disruption. In 2021 alone, Walmart’s net sales for its U.S. business grew by an eye-popping $29 billion, greatly outpacing the previous year’s sales growth, while its ecommerce operations grew by 79%.
A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on Nov. 14, 2025.
