Who is Suresh Kumar, the Indian-origin Walmart CTO in news amid latest job cuts
Walmart
announced plans to
lay off 1,500 employees
at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, as it looks to cut costs and weather economic uncertainties, affecting the global technology team, ecommerce fulfillment in US stores and advertising business, Walmart Connect.
The
job cuts
are meant to accelerate decision-making and reduce complexities, a memo by chief technology officer (CTO)
Suresh Kumar
and Walmart US chief executive officer (CEO) John Furner read, as reviewed by Bloomberg News. While eliminating some roles, Walmart is also creating new positions, they said.
The latest round of layoffs has drawn criticism from US tech workers. One user on X claimed the vacancies in the Walmart tech team will be filled by
H-1B visa
holders. One post with Kumar's image claimed without proof that 40% of Walmart's IT department comprises H-1B visa holders from India.
Play Video
Pause
Skip Backward
Skip Forward
Unmute
Current Time
0:00
/
Duration
0:00
Loaded
:
0%
0:00
Stream Type
LIVE
Seek to live, currently behind live
LIVE
Remaining Time
-
0:00
1x
Playback Rate
Chapters
Chapters
Descriptions
descriptions off
, selected
Captions
captions settings
, opens captions settings dialog
captions off
, selected
Audio Track
default
, selected
Picture-in-Picture
Fullscreen
This is a modal window.
Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.
Text
Color
White
Black
Red
Green
Blue
Yellow
Magenta
Cyan
Opacity
Opaque
Semi-Transparent
Text Background
Color
Black
White
Red
Green
Blue
Yellow
Magenta
Cyan
Opacity
Opaque
Semi-Transparent
Transparent
Caption Area Background
Color
Black
White
Red
Green
Blue
Yellow
Magenta
Cyan
Opacity
Transparent
Semi-Transparent
Opaque
Font Size
50%
75%
100%
125%
150%
175%
200%
300%
400%
Text Edge Style
None
Raised
Depressed
Uniform
Drop shadow
Font Family
Proportional Sans-Serif
Monospace Sans-Serif
Proportional Serif
Monospace Serif
Casual
Script
Small Caps
Reset
restore all settings to the default values
Done
Close Modal Dialog
End of dialog window.
Who is Suresh Kumar
Over three decades of his experience, Bengaluru-born Kumar has worked with
Microsoft
,
and
Amazon
in various leading capacities. He has been working with Walmart for nearly six years, currently serving as global CTO and chief development officer. In this role, he leads Walmart's technologists across its global businesses, including Walmart US, Sam's Club, and Walmart International. He also oversees global shared services, data, cloud, infrastructure, and information security organisations for the retail major.
Before joining Walmart, Kumar was the vice president and general manager at Google. In this role, he oversaw display, video, app advertising, and analytics, managing the advertising revenue and bottomline across platforms like the Google Play Store, Gmail, and YouTube. He led product and engineering teams for key advertising and analytics products including AdSense, AdMob, DV360, AdManager, and Google Analytics (both standard and 360). During his tenure, he drove business growth, introduced new product features, and significantly cut infrastructure and traffic acquisition costs.
Discover the stories of your interest
Blockchain
5 Stories
Cyber-safety
7 Stories
Fintech
9 Stories
E-comm
9 Stories
ML
8 Stories
Edtech
6 Stories
Before joining Google, Kumar held a senior role at Microsoft as corporate vice president of cloud infrastructure and operations. He led the global planning, delivery, and management of Microsoft's physical cloud infrastructure, including data centres, networks, servers, supply chains, and automation systems. Under his leadership, Microsoft doubled its global cloud footprint and tripled capacity. He also transformed the company's cloud supply chain and operations to enhance scalability, agility, and safety through automation.
Prior to Microsoft, Kumar spent 15 years at Amazon in multiple leadership roles. As vice president of technology for retail systems and operations, he played a key role in scaling Amazon's retail business tenfold by automating functions like forecasting, pricing, merchandising, and vendor management. He also oversaw Amazon's retail operations, catalog management, and competitive analysis. Earlier, he led Amazon's retail supply chain and inventory systems.
Kumar began his career at IBM's Thomas J Watson Research Center, where he worked on collaborative supply chain planning and shock protection technologies for portable hard drives.
Kumar holds a PhD in engineering from Princeton University. He completed his BTech in aerospace, aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 1987.
Suresh Kumar salary
Kumar earned $15.98 million last year at Walmart, according to a regulatory filing. This included base salary of $1.1 million and stock awards worth $12 million.
Walmart's tariff troubles
Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump
lashed out at Walmart
, accusing the retail giant of using tariffs as an excuse to raise prices and urging the company to absorb the cost increases instead of passing them on to American consumers.
'Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain,' Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
an hour ago
- Mint
OpenAI could buy Google Chrome, says Sam Altman — but only if this happens
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has confirmed that the AI startup is interested in buying Google Chrome if Google is forced to sell its browser by the US government. The confirmation from Altman came just days after a Wall Street Journal report revealed that Perplexity AI had reportedly offered $34.5 billion in cash to acquire Chrome from Alphabet. Notably, Google lost an antitrust trial in the United States last year, where the judge ruled that the tech giant had illegally monopolized the online search market. As part of the remedial measures, the Department of Justice has suggested that Chrome be sold to an independent entity to level the playing field. Speaking to reporters, Sam Altman said (as quoted by TechCrunch), 'If Chrome is really going to sell, we should take a look at it.' 'Is it actually going to sell? I assumed it wasn't gonna happen,' the OpenAI CEO added. Meanwhile, there have been reports that OpenAI is building its own AI browser, and Altman confirmed that the recent addition of its CEO of Applications, Fidji Simo, means the company is working on many consumer applications outside of ChatGPT. Altman also stated that OpenAI is interested in exploring a new social media platform, saying there is 'nothing' inspiring to him about the way AI is used on social media today, TechCrunch reported. He said OpenAI is interested in 'whether or not it is possible to build a much cooler kind of social experience with AI.' The OpenAI CEO also confirmed that the company would be backing a neural interface startup called Merge Labs to compete with Elon Musk's Neuralink. 'I think neural interfaces are cool ideas to explore. I would like to be able to think something and have ChatGPT respond to it,' he added. Notably, tensions have flared up between Musk and Altman over alleged Apple bias over App Store. While Musk accused the iPhone maker of being biased towards ChatGPT and not featuring his Grok AI application in any of its rankings, Altman took a dig at the billionaire over X's own policies of amplifying Musks' tweets to all users.
United News of India
2 hours ago
- United News of India
Google introduces 'Flight Deals', an AI-driven tool for easy travel
New Delhi, Aug 15 (UNI) Google unveiled an AI-powered tool named 'Flight Deals' to allow users to track insights about flight fares. The tech giant said in its official blog, "Flight Deals is designed for flexible travelers whose number one goal is to save money on their next trip." The new tool revealed by Google enables users to perform in smooth search for their flights compared to rigorous research. "Instead of playing with different dates, destinations and filters to uncover deals, you can just describe when, where and how you'd like to travel-and Flight Deals will take care of the rest," Google's official blog added. Currently, the app Flight Deals is in beta version and the company is expecting to roll out to others soon. UNI SAS RN
Hans India
3 hours ago
- Hans India
‘Super Six' poll promises superhit, says CM Naidu
Amaravati: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday said the 'Super Six' set of poll promises made by the TDP-led NDA in the state was a 'superhit'. Addressing the gathering after hoisting the national flag as part of the 79th Independence Day celebrations, Naidu said that with a 94 per cent strike rate, Andhra people created a "silent revolution" and brought the NDA to power in the state in the 2024 polls. "The coalition government is a government for the poor. We are spending thousands of crores of rupees to raise the living standards of the people and uplift the poorer sections through welfare schemes," said Naidu. During the last one year, with focus on welfare, development, and good governance, the NDA government got great satisfaction in serving the people, he noted. "I am saying this today with humility and pride. The coalition government is offering unmatched welfare assistance. There is no obstacle to development. There are unprecedented efforts for good governance. This is a record. This is an all-time record," he said. "We have made our main election promises, the Super Six, a super hit. We have given a new definition to welfare governance by supporting ewvery community, every region, every family, and every citizen," he said. The Chief Minister said that technology was the game changer for the state. 'Efforts are on to attract investment and give boost to promote technology and industries in the state'. Chandrababu Naidu said the governments were not just about meeting the immediate needs of the people; they must also provide a golden future and create opportunities. 'For this, any government or leader must work with a vision.' Observing that the 'dream capital city' of Amaravati had been restarted with the blessings of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Naidu said the government was working towards shaping it as a world class capital. The Chief Minister recounted: 'In 1995, we spoke about IT, promoted it, and showed results. Today, in 2025, we are talking about a Quantum Valley and using AI in governance. We are bringing radical changes to public services using DataLake and AWARE. Amaravati will become the Quantum Valley of the country, like the Silicon Valley in the US. The Quantum Computing Valley services will commence from January 2026. IT and data centers are coming to north Andhra. We are bringing defence, space, aerospace, drone, automobile, and electronics industries to Rayalaseema'. Chandrababu Naidu continued: 'We are working for the development of all regions. We have introduced 6 new policies to attract investments in the IT and electronics sectors. Major IT companies like Google, TCS, and Cognizant have come forward to invest in Andhra Pradesh. We are establishing the Ratan Tata Innovation Hub in Amaravati. Hubs are being set up in Visakhapatnam, Rajamahendravaram, Vijayawada, Tirupati, and Anantapur under a hub-and-spoke model.' 'We are establishing a 'Global Leadership Center' in Amaravati. We have extensively integrated technology into public administration. We have brought innovation to governance through WhatsApp governance 'Mana Mithra', providing 700 citizen services. I am reminded of the words of Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao, 'Society is the temple, people are the Gods'. We are following in his footsteps.' The Chief Minister highlighted the polices of the coalition government explaining the progress of irrigation projects, development of infrastructure, including ports, giving priority for education, medical and health, and implementation of NTR Vaidya Seva. He said that the AP government was working towards building 'Swarnandhra' as part of the Viksit Bharat -- the aim of PM Narendra Modi. Billing Polavaram Project as the lifeline of Andhra Pradesh, Naidu promised to complete it by December 2027. To make Rayalaseema fertile, Naidu said the state has decided to divert surplus Godavari water from Polavaram to Banakacherla, using only the water that would otherwise flow wastefully into the sea. The Chief Minister slammed the previous YSRCP government for allegedly pushing the state into debts. Naidu alleged that the previous YSRCP government destroyed the state over the past five years and tarnished the state's brand image. The state plunged into a debt of Rs 10.30 lakh crore, he said.
