Walmart CEO John Furner worked his way up from the garden center. After 30 years, he’s sharing the one trait that matters most in his job

For the past 13 years, Walmart sat atop the Fortune 500 as America’s revenue king. But this year, Amazon pulled off what once seemed unthinkable: overtaking the $930 billion market cap retail giant and ushering in a new phase in the battle for retail supremacy. For Walmart CEO John Furner, however, adapting to change is just another day at work. “As long as I’ve been in retail—it’s officially 33 years—it’s always been changing,” Furner said in a recent interview with Fast Company. “Getting comfortable with change in a world that continues to change, I think is a really great trait for any leader.” It’s a lesson Furner learned firsthand over more than three decades at Walmart. The Arkansas native started out at Walmart in 1993 as a part-time hourly associate in the company’s garden center, where he likely stacked bags of mulch, watered the seasonal flowers, and worked the cash register He began steadily climbing the ranks after graduating from the University of Arkansas in 1996 with a marketing management degree—from store manager to district manager, to corporate head office. By 2017, he was named CEO of Sam’s Club, before becoming CEO of Walmart U.S. in 2019. Earlier this year, Furner took the reins of the broader retail giant. But the job of the top person isn’t just being quick to adapt to change—but also to communicate it with the rest of the workforce. “With any people that you are leading—or that have allowed you to become their leader—it’s important to listen, meet them where they are,” Furner added. “Explain, talk about the purpose and why we’re doing things, talk about how this relates to the bigger picture.” For executives, change is the mandate for success At a moment when AI is reshaping business from top to bottom, Furner’s mindset might be more true now than ever—and it’s guiding Walmart through its own transformation. The more than 60-year-old retailer is leaning heavily into new technology, including Sparky, its AI-powered shopping assistant, w