How Whitney Cooper brought unity to Walmart Connect

When Whitney Cooper led omnichannel and e-commerce sales at Kellogg Co., she had plenty of ideas for how Walmart could improve its operations. Walmart not only listened but hired her in January 2020 as its director of omnichannel transformation and acceleration. At Kellogg, Cooper, 37, worked not just with Walmart Media Group (now Walmart Connect) but competitors such as Target and Kroger, “who were just crushing it,” Cooper says. On the other hand, Walmart had online media operations spread across Arkansas, California and New Jersey, with key decisions made by the Bentonville merchant team, and it didn’t always work, she says. Since arriving at Walmart, Cooper has set about changing that. See all of Ad Age’s 40 Under 40 honorees. “My initial goal was to create inside this company a way of looking at the business holistically,” she says, “trying to align incentives” and KPIs. Instead of trying to force the decision centrally, she says, “We started as a grassroots movement and have brought a group of people together who believed this is the right thing to do—merchants, marketers and e-commerce people.” On that “doing the right thing” front, Cooper also co-chairs Walmart Connect’s DE&I board, fostering minority-owned businesses and helping create the retailer’s first DE&I brand launch accelerator. If you could have dinner with one person, alive or dead, who would it be and why? Without a doubt, Steve Jobs. He changed the world. He swam upstream. He was loved, but mostly hated. I’d love to hear how he internalized all the pressure he was under and what it was really like to be him. What are the top two social media sites you use on a regular basis? LinkedIn and TikTok. I am obsessed with TikTok. I have learned so many recipes and makeup tricks and completed so many workout challenges. What’s currently on your bedside reading list? “Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World” by Adam Grant; “Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought” by Douglas Hofstadter; and “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll. What was the last show you binge-watched? “Euphoria.” Everything about this show is incredible. The writing. Acting. Music. Everything. At what age do you hope to retire? Honestly, I don’t think I will ever retire in the literal sense. I am too much like my dad and I love to learn and teach others. After corporate, I’ll probably write or teach. See all of Ad Age’s 40 Under 40 honorees.

How Whitney Cooper brought unity to Walmart Connect

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