McLay, Nicholas touted as top prospects for Walmart U.S. job 

When Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner moves up the Walmart corporate ladder following the announced Jan. 31 retirement of Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, the short list to replace Furner includes Kath McLay and Chris Nicholas.

McLay is president and CEO of Walmart International, and Nicholas is president and CEO of Sam’s Club.

Walmart said it would name a successor to Furner in the coming weeks. While there could be a dark horse candidate in the mix, McLay and Nicholas are considered by Walmart watchers as the strongest options.

McLay, 51, would be the first woman to hold the top Walmart U.S. job. Walmart has had woman CEOs at Sam’s Club and Walmart International, but never to lead the largest business unit at the retail giant, which garners around 69% of total revenue. Last year, the U.S. segment generated $462.4 billion in net sales. Walmart International had revenue of $121.89 billion, more than 500,000 employees, and more than 80 million customers per week in 18 countries.

McLay was named head of Walmart International in fall 2023 after the retirement of Judith McKenna. During this short tenure, Walmart’s international business grew sales by 13.5% in fiscal 2024, her first full year of leadership. Through three quarters of fiscal 2026, the international business recorded total sales of $94.496 billion, up 5.4% from the year-ago period. Membership income grew 2.6% year over year. McLay has also seen a surge in the e-commerce segment, with growth of 18% in 2024 and 14.2% in 2025. Through the first nine months of fiscal 2026, the segment grew e-commerce sales by 25% from the year-ago period.

McLay, an Australian, would be the second foreign-born executive to lead Walmart U.S. Greg Foran, a New Zealand native, was tapped by McMillon to lead Walmart U.S. in August 2014, a position he held until November 2019, when he returned home to lead New Zealand Air.

McLay also led Sam’s Club from November 2019 until 2023. She is credited with growing Sam’s revenue by 43% to $84 billion during her tenure as CEO. Before that, McLay was executive vice president over the Neighborhood Market business for Walmart U.S. between February and November 2019.

She joined Walmart in April 2015 as vice president of U.S. finance and strategy and was promoted to U.S. supply chain senior vice president in December 2015, While there she worked to usher in the retailer’s On-Time-In-Full protocol designed to improve the distribution center efficiencies, which was crucial in Walmart’s journey toward omichannel operations.

Prior to Walmart, McLay spent 14 years in a variety of strategic, financial and supply chain roles at Woolworth’s Group, an Australian retailer. Foran also spent more than two decades in management at Woolworth’s before joining Walmart. She also worked at Deloitte as an auditor early in her career.

McLay, recognized as one of Fortune Magazine’s Most Powerful Women in 2024, lives in Bentonville with her husband, Jason, and their three children. She holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance from the University of Technology in Sydney.

Nicholas, 48, hails from Yorkshire, England, and he would be the second youngest executive to lead Walmart U.S. if he is chosen to succeed Furner, who was 45 when he took the job in 2019.

Nicholas has been the CEO of Sam’s Club since September 2023. The club segment’s results were up 2.3% in 2024 and 4.7% in 2025. Through three quarters of this year, revenue has grown 3.36%. Before running Sam’s Club, Nicholas was an executive vice president and chief operating officer for Walmart U.S. In that role, he was responsible for all aspect of Walmart’s U.S. store operations and supply chain including strategy, innovation, automation, operations of stores, distribution and fulfillment centers, including last-mile delivery and real estate.

He first joined Walmart in August 2018, giving him about 7.5 years with the company, about three years less than McLay, but twice as long as Foran, who had just three years at Walmart before he was named Walmart U.S. CEO. Nicholas cut his teeth in retail at the age of 14 when he began working as a stock boy in England.

He first joined Walmart in 2018 as deputy chief financial officer for Walmart International, a position he held for about 18 months. He was then promoted to CFO for the international business and worked in that capacity until February 2021. Nicholas then took over as CFO for Walmart U.S. for nine months before becoming the COO for the division. He was also on the board of directors at ASDA from 2021 to 2023 and at Walmex from 2019 to February 2021.

Nicholas came to Walmart from Coles Group in Australia, where he was CFO, chief merchant, and finance director over a 3.5 year period.  He worked as finance director for Danish supermarket group Dansk and spent 12.5 years at Tesco working in Poland, Hungary, and Hong Kong where he held multiple financial roles.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in science management from the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom and resides in Rogers with his wife, Megan, and their two daughters.

OUTSIDE INPUT
Alan Ellstrand, professor emeritus at the University of Arkansas with a focus on corporate succession and governance plans, said McLay or Nicholas are likely the top choices to lead Walmart U.S. He said it’s unlikely Walmart would promote someone who has not held a CEO position within the company to oversee its largest business. He also does not expect the company to hire from outside its ranks.

Furner, 51, could potentially serve in the Walmart CEO role for a long tenure, giving Walmart time to continue developing talent, Ellstand said.

“Running Walmart U.S. is like running one of the largest corporations in the country, bigger than 99% of all other publicly traded American-based companies. They just happen to report to the guy who does run the biggest American company,” Ellstrand said.

Andy Wilson, a retired Walmart officer and former head of the retailer’s human resource division, said Walmart has always strategically moved its people around the company to provide them roles of higher responsibility. He said McLay is a strong candidate to become the next CEO of Walmart U.S. given that she ran Sam’s Club and is now over the larger international business. He said she also has critical experience in supply chain as did other top leaders at Walmart, including former CEO’s David Glass, Mike Duke, and Lee Scott.

Wilson said Nicholas also has an impressive resume, and if McLay is promoted to head up the U.S division, he would likely backfill the role of CEO for the international business, which is larger than Sam’s Club by scale and total revenue. Wilson said the board will weigh in, but Furner and McMillon will likely make the final decision with input from other top executives.

Scott Benedict, retail consultant and former Walmart executive, said McLay’s diversity of experience makes her a great choice to lead the U.S. business. He said the Walmart executive bench is deep, and he sees no need for the company to look outside for candidates to fill its CEO ranks.