A year ago, Walmart quietly altered its corporate structure, distributing decision-makers throughout the country and making Atlanta one of its hubs.
Last month, the company gave the city more prominence when Roz Brewer, then president of Walmart South and a Walmart executive vice president, was promoted to run a 20-state division out of Atlanta.
Brewer heads up Walmart East, where she is responsible for 1,600 stores and 560,000 associates in an area that stretches from Maine to Florida and includes states as far west as Michigan. It is one of three divisions in the company; the others are Walmart Central and West.
Twenty people work out of the division office, most of whom moved with the company from other areas. While Brewer expects the office to remain small, in keeping with Walmart's low administrative costs, the location near the intersection of Interstates 285 and 75 north of the city was chosen for more than its airport hub.
"There are very attractive things about Atlanta," Brewer said. "Atlanta really brings a lot to the party in terms of retention. People want to live and work in Atlanta. It just gives us choices."
Having Walmart executives here can be a boon to the city, too, she said. The company has better access to recruit from Atlanta's colleges and the real estate team is able to be on the ground more. That means negotiations for stores, such as a new one in Atlanta's Vine City neighborhood, are completed more quickly than if executives had to fly in from the company's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters.
Brewer said the decentralization has given the company more flexibility; real estate, merchandising and supply chain responsibilities for the region are being run locally.
But Wayne Hood, managing director of equity research for BMO Capital Markets, said he doesn't think the new structure means a lot for Atlanta. He doesn't expect many new jobs to be added, though he said it will mean a better response to the needs of local markets.
"A lot of decisions were made at the corporate level," he said.
The move for Brewer supposedly is a permanent one, though Hood said he would be surprised it was a long-term plan.
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