People Count

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (Bentonville, Ark.) has created two new positions in its U.S. operations, naming Bill Simon chief operating officer and Pat Curran executive vp of people.

Simon had been head of Wal-Mart’s professional services group, which includes the pharmacy and optical businesses, and in-store medical clinics. Curran was senior vp of Wal-Mart store operations for the mid-Atlantic and Southeast areas. Both will continue reporting directly to Eduardo Castro-Wright, president and ceo of Wal-Mart Stores U.S.

“We made these moves to ensure we become even more responsive to our customers and our associates,” said Castro-Wright. “Bill Simon is a talented leader with broad experience in operations, administration and sales. As leader of the Wal-Mart professional services business, Bill has proven he can drive innovation, growth and profitability, as he demonstrated with our $4 generic drug program. He will now be expanding his focus to our entire Wal-Mart Stores U.S. business.

“Pat Curran has long been a strong leader, and natural and caring advocate for associates,” he continued. “This, combined with her operations experience and knowledge of the Wal-Mart business, makes her the ideal person to lead our increased focus in this area.”

All five operations presidents — representing more than 3400 stores — will now report to Simon.

The retail giant says Curran's position reflects “the company's appreciation of the critical role almost 1.2 million associates play in helping Wal-Mart Stores U.S. continue its transformation to be more relevant to a broad and diverse customer base.” Last year, the company decentralized its field organizational structure to move leadership closer to the field. To support associates in this new structure, the company established local human resources managers in each of 343 markets, created Wal-Mart University, and initiated activities to support change management and drive associate engagement.