Kathryn McLay is the former president and CEO of Walmart International and Sam’s Club, a members-only warehouse club and division of Walmart Inc.

She announced her departure from Walmart in January 2026. Until then and beginning in 2023, Kathryn served as president and CEO of Walmart International, where she led a team of 500,000 associates serving 80 million customers per week across 18 countries. During her time in International she drove a growth agenda, leading growth and revenue profit. As the world’s leading international omnichannel retailer, Walmart International significantly contributes to the long-term growth for Walmart and its stakeholders, helping people save money and live better.

Prior to leading Walmart International, Kathryn was president and CEO of Sam’s Club, which employs more than 100,000 associates across 600 clubs in the United States and Puerto Rico. During her nearly four-year tenure at Sam’s, revenues grew by 43 percent to $84 billion in fiscal year 2023, and the clubs added millions of new members. The success led to plans for opening new clubs for the first time in more than five years.

Throughout her tenure at Walmart, Kathryn held a number of leadership roles, beginning in 2015 as vice president of U.S. Finance & Strategy. Her first role was driving the transformation of the Walmart U.S. business through oversight of a set of strategic, cross-functional initiatives called Legacy. In 2016, she moved to Supply Chain, where she redesigned the way product moved from supplier to shelf, created an integrated end-to-end Walmart U.S. supply chain and led operations of the imports and reverse networks. In 2018, she was named executive vice president of Neighborhood Markets for the Walmart U.S. business, where she led nearly 700 of the small-format stores across the country.

Kathryn began her career in 1992 at Deloitte as an undergraduate and worked in both internal and external audit and later at Qantas Airlines. In 2001, Kathryn joined Australian retailer Woolworths in corporate audit and completed her professional studies as a Certified Internal Auditor. Kathryn was then appointed head of audit reporting to the CEO and the audit committee chair. Throughout her 15 years at Woolworth’s, she held many leadership roles from corporate development through to Supply Chain.

Kathryn served as a member of the Global Board of Directors for the U.S.-India Business Council. She is past president and chairwoman of the Institute of Internal Auditors and served as a board member of ECRA, an industry board comprised of retailers and suppliers. She also served on the American Red Cross, Flipkart and Walmex boards.

A native of Australia, Kathryn has a bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance from the University of Technology in Sydney and post graduate studies in organizational psychology.