A Walmart Deep Dive
Tyler Smith (MMM ‘24) is on a multi-year path as part of the retail company's leadership development program.
Tyler Smith (MMM ‘24) is in the midst of a multi-year tour of the vast Walmart empire—a journey he never imagined he would take.
Tyler is a member of the retail company's Merchandising Leadership Development Program, which gives its participants a view into the full breadth of the company’s global footprint.
The goal is to develop future Walmart leaders with a clear understanding of what fuels the engine of the world’s largest retailer and employer. As Tyler makes his way through the program, he continues to rely on lessons he learned in Northwestern's MBA + MS Design Innovation (MMM) program—a dual-degree program between Northwestern Engineering and the Kellogg School of Management.
It was MMM that helped change Tyler’s career trajectory.
He joined the program in 2022 after five years as an engineer with medical technology company Baxter International. He planned to stay in healthcare, but a MMM professor encouraged him to explore other industries while still in school.
“You’re not risking anything," Tyler remembered the professor saying. "If you don’t like it, you can always go back."
Pursuing that advice led Tyler to a merchandising operations internship at Walmart, a company with more than 2 million employees worldwide—1.6 million in the US alone—and nearly 11,000 locations in 19 countries.
"I never thought my career would take me to Walmart," Tyler said, "but I found this, and I’m glad I did.”
His task then was to help the business adapt to ease customers’ pain points amid high inflation. To do that, he introduced colleagues to a human centered and desirability led framework he learned in one of the MMM program’s featured classes—Research-Design-Build (RDB).
“I was the only intern to do that, so they could have thought I was crazy,” he said. “They didn't, and the exposure was great.”
That exposure led to Tyler's current position.
Participants in the Merchandising Leadership Development Program rotate among various roles and areas in the company throughout the five years to develop general managerial expertise. In his first year, Tyler served as a planner in the camping business, a role he described as a mini chief financial officer. This year, he is working as a replenishment manager with the automotive team, applying AI to solve technical and strategic problems to ensure Walmart's products are in the right place at the right time.
“I think it's exciting because I get to focus not just on one facet of the business but on multiple areas,” he said. “It's a way to apply different skills that I learned at Northwestern and in MMM and bring them to life.”
At Walmart, Tyler sees the same intense focus on the customer preached throughout the MMM program.
“I want to negotiate a better cost—not for myself, but so I can pass it along to the customer, so customers can afford more groceries and live better lives,” he said. “It's something that I connected to and something that drives me.”