Walmart Appoints New Asda Chief Executive Officer

Andy Clarke To Take Up Role Immediately

Walmart today announced that Andy Clarke, Chief Operating Officer of Asda, has been appointed to the role of President and CEO and will take up the role immediately.

Andy has had a long career in UK retail. He joined the Asda in 1992 and worked in a variety of roles, including store manager, business unit director of categories such as Frozen, Bakery and Produce and retail managing director for Asda’s central division. Between 2001 and 2005, Andy had senior roles at Matalan and Iceland before returning to Asda as retail director. He was named Asda’s chief operating officer in 2007.

With the appointment of Andy Clarke, Andy Bond will now take up his new role as Chairman of Asda’s Executive Committee from today to help ensure a smooth leadership transition.

“I’m delighted to appoint Andy Clarke to be my successor,” said Andy Bond. “He was clearly the right choice from the internal and external candidates we considered. I’m looking forward to doing everything I can to ensure a smooth transition for Andy in his new role.”

President and CEO of Walmart International, Doug McMillon said, “At Walmart and at Asda, we have a robust succession planning and talent development process and Andy Clarke has long been identified as a leader. With his long career at Asda, working first as a store manager, followed by key roles in trading, as retail director and most recently as COO, Andy knows the company, our colleagues and he cares about our customers. He is the ideal person for the job and this will be a seamless leadership change.”

The new CEO will lead the retailer’s efforts to become an even better food retailer, a broader non-food retailer and a leader in e-commerce. Earlier this month the Asda leadership team laid out its plans to open a new chapter in its story and that over the five years, it had two clear aspirations -- to be the market leader in general merchandise and clear number two for food.

About Asda Stores Ltd.
Founded in the 1960s, Asda today is one of Britain’s leading retailers. It has over 170,000 dedicated Asda colleagues serving customers from 374 stores, including 25 ASDA Living stores, 23 depots and eight recycling centres across the UK (Great Britain and Northern Ireland). It has its main home office in Leeds, Yorkshire and its George clothing division based in Lutterworth Leicestershire. Asda serves over 18 million shoppers a week in store and its growing home shopping business serves over 97 per cent of UK homes.