Forty Under 40: Brandon Hill

A job at a grocery store that included the daily duty of taking out the trash made quite an impression on the teenaged Brandon Hill.

“I thought, ‘I’m not going to do this the rest of my life,’” he said.

If he needed further inspiration, Hill said all he had to do was look at his father.

“He grew up with next to nothing, but proved it could be done,” Hill said of his father, who juggled multiple jobs en route to becoming his family’s first college graduate.

Hill graduated from the University of Central Arkansas with a degree in computer information systems during the dot-com bust. He thus took a job as a sales and marketing rep for Newell Rubbermaid in Dallas.

Within a year, Hill was promoted to sales specialist, and covered a $10 million territory. Three more promotions followed before a move to Bentonville.

That was in 2005, and Hill spent six-plus years as a category adviser in Newell Rubbermaid’s Walmart division. In May, he was given his current post, a new one for the company.

Hill handles overall category management responsibilities for Sam’s Club and Amazon.com, among others.

“It’s a challenge for me, and I love challenges,” he said. “This job has never been done before, so I’m kind of paving the way.”

Hill also recently completed his master’s degree at the University of Arkansas.