Walmart exec offers view on feeding planet

Walmart is all about leveraging its scale to drive performance, but the application of that mindset can play out in many different ways, as Kathleen McLaughlin, president of the Walmart Foundation, will explain on March 3.

McLaughlin, who also serves as vice president for Walmart Global Sustainability, will address the topic of, “Business and Society in the Next Decade: Using Scale and Capabilities to Address the Complex Problems Facing the World,” when appears as the featured speaker at the Food for Thought lecture series sponsored by the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas.

The event is open to the public and scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 3, in Hembree Auditorium (Room E107) in the Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences Building at the University of Arkansas.

McLaughlin joined Walmart in October 2013 after spending more than 20 years with McKinsey & Company where she was a senior partner based in Toronto. As director of the firm’s Social Innovation Practice, she helped develop solutions to social challenges for institutions around the world.

While in the firm’s Retail Practice division, she worked with companies in the Americas, Europe and Asia to increase efficiency and drive growth by expanding into emerging markets; defending home markets against foreign competitors; revamping retail formats; introducing new categories; launching new formats; overhauling marketing, merchandising and store operations functions; and leading large-scale cost reduction efforts.