Walmart U.S. president, CEO John Furner named NRF board of directors chair

By

Benjamin Fitzgerald

Published
Jan 16, 2022

The National Retail Federation on Saturday announced Walmart U.S. president and CEO, John Furner, has been elected chairman of the NRF board of directors, succeeding Qurate Retail Inc. president and CEO, Mike George, who has served in the role since 2020.

“We are grateful to Mike George for his exceptional leadership as chairman of NRF over the last two years," said NRF president and CEO, Matthew Shay. "His guidance and insights have been critical to NRF and our industry as we navigated the pandemic, successfully advocated for critical legislation and ensured that retailers had the tools they needed to overcome the enormous challenges they faced throughout the last two years.”

Furner comes to the NRF chair role with close to 30 years of U.S. retail experience, all within divisions at Walmart, across various managerial roles.

“Retailers are the lifeblood of local communities, serving millions of customers each day with the items they need and much more,” Furner said. “Our industry is uniquely positioned to ignite economic growth and positive change in neighborhoods big and small. I look forward to leading the NRF Board during this consequential time, and I’m confident we’ll all continue to rise to the occasion.”

In addition, the NRF Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the National Retail Federation, announced the appointment of Bloomingdale's chairman and CEO Tony Spring to the role of chairman of the foundation's board of directors, succeeding Macy’s Inc. chairman and CEO, Jeff Gennette.

Spring will also serve on the NRF board, in addition to his duties as chair of the foundation.

“We are thankful to Jeff Gennette for his dedicated leadership of the NRF Foundation Board of Directors, and we are appreciative of all who have served on our board to help us prepare people of all backgrounds for life-changing careers,” said NRF Foundation executive director, Bill Thorne.

“We are pleased to welcome Tony Spring as our new chair and to continue our important work to connect more people to the industry that is a great place to start and a great place to grow.”

In addition to Spring, the foundation named Macy’s Inc. senior vice president of corporate communications, Malek Robert Amirshahi and Keith Lipert, president of the Keith Lipert Gallery, have been named to three-year terms.