Forty Under 40: Andrew Ruben

While Andy Ruben was backpacking across half the globe, little did he know a few years later he would be trying to save it.

Ruben hiked from the southern tip of Chile to Alaska during various trips in the years before marriage and two children gave him a new passion.

His trek by foot has turned into another kind of expedition, “a journey of sustainability,” he called it.

Wal-Mart makes “green” practices a high priority and Ruben, a five-year veteran of the company, is at the forefront.

A native of Columbus, Ohio, Ruben received a degree in civil engineering and a master’s in business administration from Washington University in St. Louis in 1996. He worked for Ernst & Young until joining Wal-Mart in 2002 and became its first head of U.S. strategy in 2003.

Since donning the sustainable hat in 2004, Ruben has found the learning curve to be compatible with sound business strategy.

Ruben is inspired by a tech worker who saved paper on receipts by shrinking white space and a buyer who found a way to add folic acid to tortillas to reduce spina bifida in the Hispanic population.

His advice for up-and-comers is to have both the confidence and the humility to realize how much they don’t know.