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Walmart Loses Another Senior Female Executive as Katie Finnegan Leaves

Finnegan, who joined Walmart when it acquired Jet.com in 2016, is leaving June 7 to “begin a new adventure outside the company.”

Walmart Loses Another Senior Female Executive as Katie Finnegan Leaves
The Walmart logo is displayed in a meeting room of the company in Hong Kong, China. (Photographer: Jerome Favre/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Walmart Inc. lost another senior female executive as Katie Finnegan, who co-led the retailer’s technology incubation arm, announced her departure.

  • Finnegan also served on the board of Jetblack, the text-based concierge shopping service for wealthy New Yorkers that Walmart debuted last year.

Key Insights

  • Finnegan, who joined Walmart when it acquired Jet.com in 2016, is leaving June 7 to “begin a new adventure outside the company,” according to a blog post from Walmart Senior Vice President Lori Flees. During her tenure, Finnegan helped launch Store No. 8, which sought to identify and capitalize on changes in the way people shop by using new technologies. She later ran Spatial&, previously called Spatialand, a virtual-reality startup that Walmart acquired last year.
  • Finnegan is the latest senior female executive to leave the company in recent months, following the departure of Sam’s Club COO Gisel Ruiz, human-resources chief Jacqui Canney and health and wellness executive Marybeth Hays.
  • The departure of another tech-friendly executive could be seen as a blow for a company that’s emerged as the main competitor to Amazon.com Inc. as retail is rapidly reshaped by online commerce. Her departure closely follows that of Chief Technology Officer Jeremy King, who also left Walmart to become the head of engineering for Pinterest. Seth Beal, who co-led Store No. 8 with Finnegan, also departed last year.

Market Reaction

  • The news didn’t hurt Walmart’s shares, which were up about 1 percent Wednesday in New York.

To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Boyle in New York at mboyle20@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Crayton Harrison at tharrison5@bloomberg.net, Jonathan Roeder, Kevin Miller

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