Sam’s Club’s CTO is leaving following parent company Walmart’s return-to-office mandate

• Sam’s Club’s CTO, Cheryl Ainoa, is leaving following an RTO mandate, a company spokesperson confirmed.
• The company earlier this year required US corporate employees to work at one of three office hubs.
• Walmart is readying a new corporate campus in Bentonville, Arkansas.

A top Sam’s Club executive is leaving her role following the return-to-office mandate from its parent company, Walmart.

Sam’s Club’s chief technology officer, Cheryl Ainoa — who has been with Walmart for nearly five years and in her current role for one — will leave the position and won’t be moving to Walmart’s Arkansas headquarters, the company confirmed to Business Insider.

Walmart earlier this year required US corporate employees to work at one of three office locations, near New York, in the Bay Area, or in Bentonville, the company’s hometown.

Last week, Sam’s Club CEO Chris Nicholas told BI that in-person work was helping the company innovate more quickly.

“We deeply believe in the power of collaboration, and that power of collaboration by being together,” he said. “It always has been a superpower, and it will continue to be.”

Ainoa, who did not respond to a request for comment, has been based in San Jose, California, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Bloomberg reported that Ainoa was exiting the company because of the RTO mandate as well as personal reasons and that many C-suite executives were expected to move to Bentonville. Walmart has been working on a sprawling new corporate campus that’s set to officially open early next year.

Before she joined Sam’s Club, Ainoa led Walmart’s emerging-tech team, helping to integrate generative artificial intelligence into the company’s suite of apps for employees and customers.

Walmart is one of the biggest companies to require its corporate workforce to return to the office since the pandemic sparked the remote-work era. In September, Amazon announced that employees would be expected to work in person five days a week beginning next year.

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