Sample Executive Profile

Biographical Summary

With more than 25 years at Wal-Mart, Ford started off as a college intern and hourly associate working at one outlet's shipping docks before climbing to the top IT spot at the world's premier global retailer. Highly religious and a devoted family man, Ford began on Wal-Mart's business side, running the company's global supply chain before taking over as CIO. In 2009, CIO Magazine called Ford "Wal-Mart's mystery man of IT" for being press shy, but credited him for embracing packaged software as well architecting a successful outsourcing strategy. A believer in RFID and social networking to spur innovation, Ford speaks approvingly of "healthy paranoia" when it comes to staying competitive. "You have to wake up every day and say, 'What are we missing?'" Ford said at a 2010 industry conference. "Every day you have to get up and run faster than the next guy."

Biographical Highlights

• Born in 1963, Ford grew up in Savannah, GA, where his minister father served as the director of a boys home. "It was an enivronment where I grew up with 100 brothers, from all walks of life," he said.
• In high school Ford was in a serious car accident, which he credits as a life-changing event that made him deeply religious.
• Ford obtained a BS in business administration and systems analysis from Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. Ford turned down the opportunity to play football at a high-profile university to attend the small Christian college.
• Between his Junior and Senior year at Taylor, Ford got an internship at Wal-Mart; he interned during the day and worked as an hourly associate at night on a shipping dock.
• Ford had the chance to give his intern assessment to Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. He noted Walton was gracious and commented on his suggestions.
• Ford has noted he graduated from college, married his wife, bought his first car and got his first full-time job all within the same week.
• Ford's first full-time job interview with Wal-Mart was not a positive experience. Highly allergic to cigarette smoke, Ford first sat with three IT executives, who were all smokers. Ford got sick in the meeting, and thought that was it for him, until he went to future CEO Lee Scott, who suggested he work on the smoke-free distribution floor.
• Wal-Mart Stores
  - Joined the Company on the distribution floor and held various positions in the logistics department (1983-2003)
  - EVP, Logistics and Supply Chain (2003-2006)
  - EVP and CIO (2006-present)
• In 2009 CIO Magazine called Ford "Wal-Mart's Mystery Man of IT" for being so press shy.
• Ford has an older brother, who lives in Atlanta, GA.
• Ford lives in Wal-Mart's hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas with his wife of more than 25 years, Sandy. The couple have three daughters; Jessica, Paige and Audrey.
  

Personal Attributes and Interests

• In 2004 Ford donated $250 to George W. Bush's presidential reelection campaign.
• Ford was based in London before taking on the CIO job at Wal-Mart.
• In 2008 Ford was a featured speaker at the 17th Annual High Tech Prayer Breakfast. He explained at the breakfast that when it was announced he was moving from the business side to run IT for the global company, friends called him and warned him CIO meant "career is over."
• At the breakfast Ford warned attendees not to become too focused on online communication and remember the value of building face-to-face relationships, calling that skill "an art, not a science."
• "The one thing life has taught me is never underestimate anyone," Ford said.
• Ford has said past and present Wal-Mart executives David Glass, Sam Walton, Lee Scott, Don Soderquist and Joe Hardin were all mentors to him.
• Besides a pet dog, Ford keeps a herd of cows at his home.

Other Boards and Organizations

• Board of Directors, Thurgood Marshall College Fund
• Board of Directors, Mercy Health System
• Board member, The Seiyu, Ltd.
• Board member, GS1 Management Board

Current Focus

• Radio Tags: Wal-Mart Stores plans to roll out sophisticated RFID tags to track individual pairs of jeans and underwear, the first step in a system that advocates say better control inventory but critics say raise privacy concerns. Starting in August 2010, the retailer will place removable "smart tags" on individual garments that can be read by a hand-held scanner. Wal-Mart workers will be able to quickly learn, for instance, which size of Wrangler jeans is missing, with the aim of ensuring shelves are optimally stocked and inventory tightly watched. If successful, the tags will be rolled out on other products. "This ability to wave the wand and have a sense of all the products that are on the floor or in the back room in seconds is something that we feel can really transform our business," said Wal-Mart. But the company's latest attempt to create the "next-generation Wal-Mart" has privacy advocates raising questions. While the tags can be removed from clothing and packages, they can't be turned off, and they are trackable. Wal-Mart is demanding that suppliers add the tags to removable labels or packaging instead of embedding them in clothes, to minimize fears that they could be used to track people's movements. It also is posting signs informing customers about the tags. Wal-Mart won't disclose what it's spending on the effort, but it confirms that it is subsidizing some of the costs for suppliers.
• Multi-year contract: In December 2009, Wal-Mart selected three IT vendors in India -- Infosys Technologies, Cognizant Technology Solutions and UST Global -- for multi-year contracts worth over $600 million. The amount is roughly equivalent to the value of goods -- textiles, handicrafts and other products -- that the retailer sources from India every year. This development is expected to boost the IT outsourcing landscape in India, given that Walmart typically prefers to develop its retail applications in-house. Walmart gradually started buying packaged retail applications from leading software vendors such as Oracle, HP and SAP only towards the end of 2007. It had, however, given Infosys and Cognizant pilot projects in mid-2009. The figure is set to grow as Walmart increases outsourcing of work from its main merchandising division.
• Sustainability Initiative: In 2009 Wal-Mart announced it was getting serious about its green and a best practices agenda with the development of a global product index that would require the company's more than 100,000 suppliers to account for its energy, material efficiency natural resources and community practices. The information is housed in a global database that lists all products by a simple rating understandable to the average consumer.
• Supporting global standards: In June 2010 Ford is speaking at the UConnect conference, which advocates for the adoption and implementation of standards-based, global supply-chain solutions. "Walmart is leveraging industry standards to level the playing field for our suppliers globally, and to increase our process efficiency, which helps us take out costs and deliver everyday low prices to our customers, so they can save money and live better," Ford said. "This includes our work with data synchronization-based item-file alignment, which gives us one version of truth about product data, enabling item data accuracy, store-level inventory management, and global replenishment. And standards help us address emerging issues around food and product safety, sustainability, and visibility into our global supply chain."
• Platform for Retailers: In late 2009 Wal-Mart began allowing select retailers to sell some of their products on the global giant's web site, adding nearly one million products to its online inventory. The move helps equal the playing field with online retailers like Amazon and eBay. Wal-Mart only handles the checkout and transactions, while the partner retailers are responsible for shipping and returns.
• Social Networking innovation: Ford is a big believer in using social networking to drive innovation and engage employees. "We conducted a blogging exercise on energy conservation," Ford explained. "We had more than 6,000 posts with ideas from employees, and saved millions in energy costs as a result." One employee blogger suggested removing a redundant light bulb from soda machines. Companywide, the change was significant. "Our savings by taking that one light bulb out of the machines was $1 million aggregated across all our locations...Our role is to foster a culture of innovation. When good ideas come forward, we need to spend time pushing these ideas to the next level."

Key Challenges

• Surfing the deluge: Managing the information needs of a company with 200 million customer transactions a week is no small feat. "We keep a healthy paranoia," Ford told The Economist in February 2010. The company has used its Retail Link system for more than a decade, which shows the rate of sales for every product in every store by the hour, day or year. The model shifted the responsibility of inventory management to suppliers, lowering Wal-Mart's overstock risk.
• Sticking with RFID: For years Wal-Mart has been touting the benefits of radio frequency identification and enocuraging suppliers to adopt the system, seen by many as the logical replacement for the bar code, but lack of industry standardization and the skepticism of many retailers and manufacturers has hampered a broader rollout. "We're still bullish on RFID," Ford said at the Big Show 2010 convention in New York, revealing Wal-Mart plans on incorproating RFID in its own apparel supply chain. Ford said the company plans to "eat what we cook" in terms of its support for RFID.
• Lack of competitive advantages: The days when companies could rely on a new technology or unique systems to delineate themselves from their competitors are over in a technologically flat world full of open systems, Ford has argued. "There are very few secrets out there anymore," Ford said. "The only competitive advantage becomes the speed aspect. Organizations need to keep embracing innovation and new technology models. At the end of the day, it's about getting from point A to point B quicker than everybody else."

Peers and Influencers

• Joseph S. Hardin, Director, PetSmart, Inc: Ford has called the former CEO of Sam's Club and former CEO of Kinko's a mentor.
• H. Lee Scott, Jr., Former President and CEO, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc: Scott gave Ford his first full-time job at Wal-Mart in 1983.
• Don Soderquist, Former COO, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.: Ford has credited Soderquist, who wrote the book " The Wal-Mart Way," with being a mentor.