Sam’s Club Chief Technology Officer Cheryl Ainoa will be stepping down after being ordered back to office, a company spokesperson confirmed. Earlier this year, the company required employees at its U.S. companies to work from one of three office hubs. Walmart is preparing a new corporate campus in Bentonville, Arkansas.
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A top executive at Sam’s Club is leaving his position after being ordered back to the office by parent company Walmart.
Sam’s Club Chief Technology Officer Cheryl Ainoa, who has been with Walmart for nearly five years and has been in her current position for one year, is stepping down and will not be moving to Walmart’s Arkansas headquarters, the company confirmed to Business Insider.
Earlier this year, Walmart required its U.S. employees to work from one of three office locations: one near New York, the Bay Area, and its hometown of Bentonville.
Last week, Sam’s Club CEO Chris Nicholas told BI that in-person work is helping the company innovate faster.
“We believe deeply in the power of collaboration and the collaborative power that comes from being together,” he said. “It has always been a superpower and always will be.”
Ainoa, who did not respond to BI’s request for comment, is based in San Jose, according to his LinkedIn profile.
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Bloomberg reported that Ainoa is leaving the company, citing RTO obligations in addition to personal reasons, and that a number of executives are expected to move to Bentonville. Walmart is working on a vast new corporate campus that is expected to officially open early next year.
Prior to joining Sam’s Club, Ainoa led Walmart’s emerging technology team and helped integrate generative AI into the company’s suite of apps for employees and customers.
Walmart is one of the largest companies to require employees to return to the office since the pandemic era of remote work. Amazon announced in September that starting next year, employees would work in-person five days a week.
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