Ruiz rewarded after nearly 20 year Walmart career

The magazine Latina Style is hosting its annul awards and diversity leaders conference in Washington on Feb. 3, and Walmart’s Gisel Ruiz is being honored as Latina executive of the year. Ruiz began her career at Walmart in 1992 as a management trainee and held all manner of store positions including assistant manager, co-manager and store manager. In 2006 she was promoted to VP and regional general manager and in 2008 she was named SVP people. Last summer, as Walmart underwent a restructuring and sought to align the human resource functions of its home office and field operations Ruiz was called upon to serve as EVP Walmart people reporting directly to Walmart U.S. president and CEO Bill Simon. Ruiz was selected from among more than 300 nominations, according to organizers of the conference which is now in its eighth year.