Walmart’s Strategy When Wading Into Culture Wars: Offend Few

Mr. McMillon, who earned about $23 million last year, has seen his profile grow nationally. In September, he was named the next chairman of the Business Roundtable, a lobbying group for large corporations that recently expressed the need for companies to benefit not just shareholders, but also their employees as well as the environment.

It was the needs of Walmart employees, Mr. McMillon said, that prompted him to speak out after the racist-fueled violence in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017. Walmart is considered the nation’s largest single private employer of Hispanics, and just as many African-American women shop at the retailer as rural white men.

Mr. McMillon, who was serving on a White House advisory board on manufacturing, publicly criticized President Trump for not condemning the white supremacists at the rally. Other executives on the advisory board stepped down, although Mr. McMillon stayed on until Mr. Trump disbanded the group amid the controversy.

“When something like that happens we have to look at our own associates as leaders and feel good about how we are representing the company,” Mr. McMillon said in the 2017 interview.

This year, Mr. McMillon is again advising the Trump administration. In March, he and several other chief executives of large companies joined the White House’s American Workforce Policy Advisory Board, which is discussing issues around workers whose jobs are being displaced by technology.

Walmart did not issue a release about Mr. McMillon’s appointment to the board.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/business/walmart-doug-mcmillon.html?emc=rss&partner=rss