Who Is Suresh Kumar? The Indian Tech Chief Behind Walmart’s 1,500 Layoffs

Walmart’s announcement of 1,500 technology layoffs has generated a lot of debate, particularly about Chief Technology Officer and Indian-origin, Suresh Kumar, who is at the center of this high profile controversy. The layoffs are amongst employees in Walmart’s Bentonville headquarters and global technology team as part of an overall effort for a streamlined decision making process and a flatter corporate structure.

In a memo seen by Bloomberg, both Kumar and Walmart’s U.S. chief executive officer John Furner stated that the restructuring was meant to increase speed, while also reducing complexity in the organization. The layoffs have sparked negative reactions on social media, with critics calling out Kumar as the public’s face of the company’s plan to cut costs.

His Background and Education

Suresh Kumar was born in Basavanagudi, Bengaluru and earned his Btech degree in aerospace engineering from IIT Madras and a PhD in Control Systems from Princeton University. He has an overall more than 30 years experience in technology. He began his career at IBM, then had various roles at Amazon, Microsoft and Google. At Amazon he rose to the position of Vice President of Retail Systems. Before joining Google, he was CTO of Azure at Microsoft and was in charge of Display and Video Ads at Google.

His Role at Walmart

Kumar came to Walmart in 2019 as EVP, Global CTO & Chief Development Officer, thus he is accountable for technology for Walmart around the globe across the U.S., Sam’s Club and International locations. His group has responsibilities for data, infrastructure, cloud and cyber security. His pay last year was 15.98 million reported in SEC filings, with 12 million in stock awards.

The layoffs have come under fire but Kumar is key to the digital transformation at Walmart.