Walmart Store No. 8 under new leadership

Walmart hired Scott Eckert to run its investment arm and startup incubator known as Store No. 8. The retail giant said Eckert will take over for Lori Flees, who ran Store No. 8 in addition to being senior vice president of health and wellness for Sam’s Club.

Flees will continue her role at Sam’s Club as Eckert, a former Bain Capital Ventures executive, will work to expand Walmart’s e-commerce business in partnership with retail startups, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, Walmart U.S. e-commerce CEO Marc Lore announced on Monday, (June 3). The internal memo was also obtained by Talk Business & Politics and is the basis for this report.

Lore said Eckert has built companies, raised substantial venture capital and brought disruptive technologies to market. Eckert also has a record of turning innovative ideas into successful businesses and building them to scale, Lore said in the announcement.

One of the startups launched and supported by Store No. 8 is JetBlack, a same-day delivery service in a trial in Manhattan to a select number of preferred customers. Lore recently said the test continues and there is a waiting list for consumers to be added. He said over time, the company could expand the service that allows customers to place orders with a text message. For now, it’s still in pilot mode only.

The memo said prior to Eckert’s work at Bain Capital he was president and CEO and Rethink Robotics. He also co-founded Motion Computing and worked as a general manager for Dell’s worldwide e-commerce business unit. He holds a bachelor’s degree in qualitative economics from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.