Then and Now: Carmen Kingston moves into regional management at Sam’s Club

Carmen Kingston believes she’s “an example of how ordinary can become extraordinary, when empowered and supported by others.” As regional general manager, vice president for Sam’s Club’s east region, Kingston is responsible for 91 Sam’s Club locations and 13,000 employees.

Looking back, she knows she’s come a long way from the 18-year-old who left her entire family behind in northern Mexico to move to the United States.

Kingston’s parents, who only completed the third and sixth grades, were the first to believe in her.

“My dad raised me thinking and believing I could do absolutely anything,” she said. “From my mom and dad, I had this great example of commitment, hard work ethic and integrity. My father sacrificed a lot for me and my sisters to go to school. He always told us he had nothing to give us, but his inheritance to us was going to be our education.”

Kingston’s first job with Walmart was as an hourly employee with the company’s international division in 1996. She then moved to Sam’s Club where she had multiple recruiting, e-learning, marketing and operations roles. In 2007 she became director of multichannel business services for Sam’s Club Ecommerce and was named to the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 class in 2008.

Beginning her first ex-pat role in 2013, Kingston led Sam’s Club Puerto Rico as regional general manager for two years and was responsible for the entire operation and 3,200 employees. She was tapped to take the same role for Walmex-Sam’s Club in Mexico City in 2015. In 2016 she became operations vice president and COO for Walmex, responsible for 163 club locations and 25,000 employees. Kingston began her existing role in 2019.

Looking back over her 30-year career, Kingston reminisces about “a wall of gratitude that extends miles and miles,” with the names of so many people who believed in, guided and “raised me professionally,” she said.

“I couldn’t even speak English when I came to the U.S., and it’s incredible that nobody ever asked me to change who I am. To the contrary, they have enabled me to show up as who I am, and so there’s no limits to what you can accomplish.”

“One of the things I’ve always done and has been a differentiator for me has been creating an environment of belonging, because when you feel you belong, your potential magnifies. I’m an example of that environment that others have created for me through my career,” and so Kingston often does the same thing in organizations or communities, working on multiple nonprofit boards and to advance and promote women.

Wanting the “next generation of leaders to know they can accomplish anything,” Kingston believes in finding a way to pay it forward.

“It’s been something that’s set me apart, not to withdraw, but to give back to the teams that I’ve supported, always looking at ways that we can create an environment for people to thrive.”

Kingston added that “influence is not a title. The power of influence is your willingness to help others and to allow others to help you.”

Working for a company “that embraces change as one of the fundamentals of how we operate,” Kingston said she’s “embraced every challenge or every transition with curiosity. Our company changes and moves at a speed that you have to keep up, so I’ve tried to be a student and surround myself with people that are better than me. It’s been one of the keys of my success and how I’ve faced challenges.”

Five years after coming to Walmart, Kingston became an American citizen. The significance of that and of her journey hit her when two of her children graduated with master’s degrees, and when her first grandson was born.

“To see him and know the potential of what he can do, what can be possible for this next generation, is incredible,” she said.

Her career “hasn’t all been a cakewalk,” Kingston said, and two quotes sum up her journey. “When you want what you have never had, you must do what you have never done.” And “straight roads don’t develop skillful drivers.”