Walmart taps veteran Exec Latriece Watkins as CEO of Sam’s Club
26th January 2026 · 0 Comments
By Nahlah Abdur-Rahman
Contributing Writer
(blackenterprise.com) – Walmart has appointed a long-time executive to oversee its Sam’s Club division, making way for the Black woman to shine as CEO.
Latriece Watkins has been an instrumental figure at the retail corporation for the past 20 years. According to Fast Company, she began her lofty career at Walmart within its real estate division.
Her business acumen and savviness led to substantive promotions, including her prior role as Chief Merchant in 2023. In this position, she oversaw which products were stocked on Walmart’s shelves, curating options for customers while creating new opportunities for growing businesses.
Three years later, she has taken on her biggest role yet as CEO of Sam’s Club. The membership club is the more exclusive shopping option for Walmart loyalists, offering bulk options for families with bigger budgets and, often, more mouths to feed.
Given her experience implementing higher-end items into Walmart’s inventory and thus enticing higher-earning shoppers, Watkins will get the chance to further prove her expertise as an official CEO. Her work now aims to make Sam’s Club a sharper competitor to the popular Costco.
With membership-based stores adopting similar business models, Walmart and Watkins hope to cut into Costco’s sales by boosting Sam’s Club’s private-label brands. Its mainstay brand, Member’s Mark, still accounts for a third of Sam’s Club’s revenue. However, given Watkins’s success with Walmart’s Bettergoods private-label, her mission is to further promote Member’s Mark to shoppers.
Her appointment also serves as a boost in diverse leadership. In the retail industry, the C-suite has often shut its door to Black women professionals. According to statistics from the Women of Color Retail Alliance, obtained by the Robin Report in 2023, Black women only accounted for 1.7 percent of executive roles in the retail and goods industry.
Despite the marginal figures, Watkins’ promotion adds a Black woman to the executive office. As she assumes the new role, she will curate another elevated shopper experience for the retail giant, leading the way for other large chains.
This article originally published in the January 26, 2026 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
