Forty Under 40: Nic Keneipp

A weekend sleepover at his best friend’s house led Nic Keneipp into the retail industry. He awoke to find his friend’s father deciding how many shoes to purchase for the following year.

“He walked me through the process, and I was like, “This is your job?’ And he said, ‘This is what I get paid to do.’ And I’m like, ‘That’s what I want to do. I want to be a buyer,’” Keneipp said. “That’s sixth grade.”

The experience guided him through high school and college in the courses, jobs and internships he selected.

“I thought it was so fascinating that a company would give him all this money to buy stuff a year out, and he was setting the trend and knowing what to buy and how to do it,” he said.

His first industry job was at Shoe Carnival. He worked at its main Indiana store in high school and college before Walmart recruited him to Bentonville in 2008.

He worked for Walmart until 2020. 

In the last four years, he was with Walmart.com, managing an 18-person home division planning team.

“I grew a passion around innovation, trying new flavors, trying new trends, and seeing what customers would gravitate toward and what they absolutely would not,” he said.

From 2020 to 2022, he created 

pizza for Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports. In 13 months, he helped turn an idea into four frozen pizza products that launched in all Walmart stores. In the first year, sales rose to $30 million.

About two years ago, he joined New Nexus Group, helping clients sell their products at Walmart. Under his leadership, sales rose by 117% in a year, and the company added more than 25 clients.