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Walmart's Brewer develops leaders
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| | | Walmart’s Roz Brewer speaks with Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce members after her talk at the monthly Eggs & Enterprise Breakfast. Bob Pepalis. (click for larger version) | |
November 02, 2009
Johns Creek – Walmart's Rosalind Brewer is no stranger to North Fulton, having worked for Roswell-based Kimberly-Clark.
"I spent 22 years of life just after college at Kimberly-Clark," she told Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce members and guests at the Eggs & Enterprise Breakfast held at Mt. Pisgah United Methodist Church.
As division president of Walmart's southeast operations, Brewer is in charge of 250,000 employees and hundreds of stores.
She said the many entrepreneurs at the breakfast took a different career path than she did.
"You are much more risk takers than I have done, I've been corporate all my life," Brewer said.
Until three years ago, she was with Kimberly-Clark. Her last position was as global president of manufacturing and operations.
A recruiter sought her for a job with Walmart. After turning that position down, the recruiter came back with another position. Brewer also turned that down three times before accepting a job to run the company's Georgia stores.
What finally intrigued her was the person really pursuing her was a woman, who at the time was running Walmart's southeast operations. And her boss, who ran all of Walmart's stores, was a woman, giving "a great opportunity for me to be part of a pretty diverse operation being run by women."
The timing was tough, as she had just accepted a position on Coors board of directors, accepted a position as a trustee for her alma mater, Spelman College, and had a 3-year-old and 11-year-old at home.
"I made it work and Walmart made it work," Brewer said.
Working solely in the corporate world didn't mean she couldn't offer a Business perspective. She had run several of the companies acquired by Kimberly Clark.
"Business is not falling into our laps like everybody thinks," she said.
Walmart had to change its own attitudes several years ago. Brewer said the company didn't run clean stores and put in real estate anywhere they could get it, often paying too much.
"It has been quite the process in getting this company turned around," she said.
While many new stores still are scheduled to open, Brewer said expansions and even smaller stores are planned and are opening.
Walmart has 4,200 stores in the United States, with another 3,000 outside the country, particularly in Russia. The company is strong in the United Kingdom, where ome storefronts sell just apparel and others only groceries, much different than the supercenters here.
Last year the company reached more than $400 billion in sales.
"We are the largest private employer in the U.S., quickly approaching over 2 million employees," Brewer said.
Those employees help the Walmart Foundation pick the community organizations that receive grants, which reached almost $300 million this year, up about $25 million from last year.
Brewer puts training as a priority.
"I spend a lot of time developing the next leaders of my company, and actually the next leaders of my community," she said.
That's something she does for Spelman and Coors on their boards, and what she does for a living with her 250,000 employees.
The company made national news when it opened its newest Dekalb store, which was built around a job empowerment zone. More than 10,000 applicants sought the 500 jobs.
The company also gave the community $35,000 to $40,000.
"We go in and not only build the store, but try to lift up the community around it, Brewer said.
 View images. Walmart in Georgia
55,000 employees
135 Walmart stores
22 Sam's Club stores
7 distribution centers
$10 billion spent with 21 supplies in Georgia, which put approximately 100,000 people to work.
Tags: Business, Johns Creek
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