Global Security Takes Priority at Wal-Mart

Ken Senser’s job at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. includes everything from telling employees how to avoid pickpockets to overseeing the disaster relief sent to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.

Senser is senior vice president of Global Security, Aviation & Travel for Wal-Mart. Before being hired by the world’s largest retailer in 2003, Senser was assistant director for security at the Central Intelligence Agency.

“The principles are the same,” he said. “Understand what is important to the organization, what’s of value, and find ways to safeguard that, add value and not impede it.”

In other words, Senser said, he makes sure Wal-Mart employees are safe when they travel overseas so they can concentrate on doing their jobs.

Wal-Mart has retail stores in 14 countries. Senser said the company’s employees may be in 70 different countries on any given day.

“Our No. 1 priority is the safety of our associates,” he said. “Wal-Mart has always been outstanding when it comes to protecting its customers and protecting its inventory, but 9/11 got the company thinking about its risks a little differently.”

Before Wal-Mart employees travel abroad, Senser can tell them everything from how to hail a cab in the countries they are visiting to what neighborhoods to avoid.

It’s all part of Wal-Mart’s Travel Safe program. Wal-Mart has a fleet of 22 Lear jets, but “the vast majority of our people travel commercially,” Senser said.

Senser’s duties include business continuity, global readiness and crisis response, corporate investigations, security technology, corporate security, executive protection, international asset protection, aviation and maintenance, corporate travel and leisure travel.

While with the CIA, Senser transformed the FBI’s security program after the espionage arrest of Robert P. Hanssen in 2001. Senser joined the CIA in 1983 and was promoted into the Senior Intelligence Service in 1996.