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Why Walmart? - YouTube
Channel: Walmart
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[Music]
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hey everyone
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and welcome to the huddle this is uh
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an event that we get together with
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people every few weeks to talk about
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them we talk about walmart associates
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and and how all this comes together and
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today i'm really
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really fortunate to have rachel brandt
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who is
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has been with the company now it's about
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about two years rachel since 2018 if i
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remember right
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and uh you um we'll talk about your
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background and and some of the things
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you've done but
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uh let's start with where you grew up
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and and your your midwest roots and
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and how all this has come together for
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you and your career the last few years
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yeah yes i grew up in i was born in
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michigan actually but griffin pella
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iowa which is a town of i don't know
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nine maybe ten thousand now people like
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that way or you know north north of here
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but very similar camila like when you
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drive through the countryside
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you know very uh similar feeling
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although flattered on the ozarks but
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yeah
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small town upbringing so it feels kind
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of like bentonville probably used to be
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but in bentonville the whole metro area
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feels a lot bigger now but yeah happy to
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be back in the midwest after a
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i don't know 25 years sojourn in the
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northeast
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yeah a little tour to the uh to the
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northeast so you're you're an attorney
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you went uh from growing up in this um
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farm town which which
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really strikes court with me my my
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grandparents
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ran a farm my grandmother worked in town
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a little but my mom grew up on a farm
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so i i grew up very similar and had a
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little john around the world as well
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the other way you went north and i went
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to uh to asia and some other places
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but um what what led you from the
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the farm and your upbringing deciding
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you wanted to be
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an attorney it's a big big leap and
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pretty different so when did you know
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that's what you wanted to do
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that's a good question i was a political
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science major in college and i'm really
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interested in government
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and the the sort of functioning on
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government public policy issues
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and i think i went to law school because
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that tends to be a thing that people do
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when you graduate from college with a
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poly sci major and you don't know what
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else you're supposed to do
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but it was a it was a great way for me
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to actually get into
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government later i didn't go straight
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into government i was at a couple of law
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firms and did some other things but
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was in and out of the federal government
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in dc for about
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20 years and so that that law school
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training
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uh was really helpful in that way so the
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big question i have is
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is why walmart so you you had a
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successful career
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as an attorney you worked in government
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and had some amazing jobs there
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and and i remember meeting you and in
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the process when you're thinking about
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us so i
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i felt like my role was just to try to
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help explain who we are
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and and who we aren't but you you made
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the leap it's been
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um quite quite an interesting two years
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we'll say that with the
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with what we've gone through last year
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but but what what was it about the
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company that
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that got you here and and also you know
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what is it that
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is exciting and keeps you motivated here
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at walmart
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well it kind of was out of the blue so i
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some of our colleagues at walmart were
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people that i had known in previous
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parts of my career and kind of got a
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call out of the blue would you be
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interested in talking about this job and
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frankly never thought i'd leave dc and
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didn't plan to leave dc but started to
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look at this and it was
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honestly it was just too interesting and
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too good to pass up when i started to
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look at it and i remember very well my
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interview with you john
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because i remember you and and the rest
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of the team that i interviewed with too
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you were so excited about walmart and
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the opportunity that walmart has to do
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good for people
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and in the world and i thought to myself
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i don't think they're faking it like
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they
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really are excited about the good that
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walmart can do and it was
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just something that didn't have really
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occurred to me that that would be part
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of the interview process but
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as i started to think about it and then
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especially after i got to the company
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and started to
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to understand the scope of what we do i
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thought you know what
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you know coming out of the federal
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government you think okay you're at the
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department of justice you can
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wear the white hat you can put bad guys
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in jail you can
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you know catch human traffickers and
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things like that but then you come to
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walmart and you think man
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we can actually change whole economies
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almost to
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dissuade people from engaging in human
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trafficking so like we can actually
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whereas the government can do things on
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the back end we can do things on the
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front end
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to make sure that supply chains are free
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of slave labor and things like that it's
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really cool it's really exciting in
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terms of um
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you know what it's like being here the
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one thing that i really did not
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understand it all when i was
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interviewing for the job and it's been a
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really pleasant surprise it's just
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the scope and scale and the diversity of
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the issues that we handle and i feel
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like every single thing going on in the
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world sometimes
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we're touching and i'm learning about so
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i came in the company in my mid 40s and
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i feel like
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i've been learning something about so
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many different things which is
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kind of exhausting but really exciting
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so whether it's tech
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or you know foreign policy issues affect
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us
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of course every area of law you can
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possibly imagine we touch but also
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you know there's just so many issues it
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really is like you open the newspaper
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and
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something about that is probably
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affecting us which is really fun
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i'm glad you brought up um you know
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passion for people and opportunity
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um i probably people that are watching
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this know that i started in a store
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part-time and and and i i didn't really
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know what to expect i just thought i
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would do this for a summer i was like a
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failed musician
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and in college so i'll just do it for a
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few months and
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and then you know i find myself um
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realizing that anything that happens
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in the world basically is happening
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around
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or in our environment and and i can't
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think of a single day and
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almost well 27 years now that i haven't
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learned something or i haven't been able
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to see something on the outside and
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had learned something or saw something
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about it while i was at work at walmart
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the
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the breadth is just fantastic and and
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look i'm
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i think i'm a generalist you're a
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specialist and it you know if you want
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to over
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categorize what we are but both both
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have you know really
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valuable roles here so this background
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you had that led you to
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you know general um breath in law let
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now has prepared you to do
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something really quite unique it's funny
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that you think i'm a
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specialist i think i'm a generalist well
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you are now
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we can really you can really drill down
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into specialties and it's and that's
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what's so fun i mean
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even just if you think about the lawyers
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who work for me you've got specialists
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in
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healthcare and financial services and
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everything you can imagine but then of
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course we've got so many people who are
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not lawyers doing so many really
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interesting things whether it's
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food safety or whatever it is it's it's
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just something new every every day talk
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about the remit you have here
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and the variety of things that that you
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do on a weekly basis
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yeah it's kind of an interesting
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collection of functions we call it
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global governance and i
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i realized shortly after i got to
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walmart that a lot of people in the
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company don't know what global
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governance is you know they might know
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what legal is or what compliance is but
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they don't really
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they don't really know what's in the
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organization um so it's of course the
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legal department people
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usually know what lawyers do we advise
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the business and try to help the
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business get to where they're trying to
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go
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you know with following the law of
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course we have litigators who defend the
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company against lawsuits and things like
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that so that's a legal department
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we have another uh vertical that we call
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the office of the corporate secretary
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so i'm the corporate secretary but we
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have gordon allison and his team of
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lawyers and they're
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they're mostly lawyers but they manage
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our you know board of directors meetings
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they handle corporate governance you
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know we're a publicly traded company so
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we have to file things with the
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securities and exchange commission we
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have to follow the new york stock
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exchange rules all those kinds of things
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tax law
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things like that then we have a
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compliance division of course which is
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the biggest one and all around the world
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and they're handling
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i mean this is what's so interesting
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about walmart because we're in so many
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different businesses
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we have lots of different compliance
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issues much more so than a lot of
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companies would have so
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it's not just your typical ones which
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are important like anti-corruption
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and antitrust and things like that but
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it's also it's food safety because we're
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a grocer
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it's health care compliance because we
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have pharmacies and clinics it's
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financial services compliance because we
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have money centers it runs the
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plus you know environmental health and
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safety all those sorts of things
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you know i just i love the fact that you
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know food safety is about microbiology
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i never had to think about microbiology
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before you know that's pretty
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interesting
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we have expert sarah mortimer is our
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expert on on food safety
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and then we've got a new function i know
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you interviewed nula o'connor
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not long ago so i created that
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function it's called digital citizenship
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which is a term that we've made up
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because we're trying to think of a way
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to
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convey the fact that there's so much of
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our business is driven by data and
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technology
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which they're they're of course
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important issues around privacy but it's
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so much more than just out of privacy
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it's
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ethical use of technology it's you know
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when you use artificial intelligence you
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want to make sure that there's no bias
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in the algorithm that all those kinds of
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issues
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are um really hot and evolving and
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really really important to
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creating trust with our customers and of
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course complying with the law too
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let's see then there's the global
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security and aviation so they they keep
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us safe the aviation department i mean
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john you're probably one of their
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biggest customers they
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you know they fly our operators all
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around the country to visit stores and
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and um and do so they're a really great
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facilitator
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of operations and then i've got global
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investigation so
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these are lawyers who do internal
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investigations and then if we have a
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government investigation so
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i'm going to be embarrassed if i if i
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missed somebody then we have a small
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central um strategy group too
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but it's a super super interesting
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collection of functions
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so after that description i want to stay
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in corrected you are a journalist
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evolved from a specialty function let's
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just call it that that's it's pretty
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amazing
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what what advice rachel would you have
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for people that are
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in school early in their career and
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and hear the things you've described and
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and want to
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aspire to have a career like you've had
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like what would you tell
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what would you tell rachel at 18 years
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old if you could go back and say
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something today
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oh man you know one thing one thing i
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found
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my career has taken a lot of trips and
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twists and turns i've done a lot of
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different things
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uh you know if you think about the
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number of years i've been out of school
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it's a lot of different jobs and a lot
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of those things have just sort of
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opportunities have sort of presented
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themselves that i wasn't necessarily
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looking for
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and so you know i some young lawyers
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will come to me sometimes so they have a
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very specific career plan in mind and i
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say you know
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that's okay but you got to remember that
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if you're if you're too specific in your
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aspirations you're more likely to be
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disappointed and if you're willing to
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grab on to an opportunity that's
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something you never ever thought you
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would do
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you might love it and it might really
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develop you in in a different way that
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then opens you up to even more
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opportunities that you never thought you
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would get and just
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being open to that kind of diversity of
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experience to me has served me
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very well it's funny you describe it
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that way i i say something similar
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when people ask and it's when an
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opportunity opportunity presents itself
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try to find the yes
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there are always going to be a lot of
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reasons to not do things or take risks
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but try to find
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try to find a reason to say yes because
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the only way to be sure
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that you won't be able to move forward
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is by saying no now you know you've got
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to think through that and their
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constraints like time and family and
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we're airing life and
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etc but life just presents things and
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and i find people that
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that do really well are the ones that
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they they take a bit of a risk and
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and they go for it so we just launched a
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new code of conduct at walmart so
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love to hear uh about that it builds on
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our values
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um but but tell us about the program
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yeah
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well you know one of the great things
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about walmart is that we take integrity
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really seriously
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it's not just a put on it's not you know
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just a veneer
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really living our values acting with
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integrity is really core to what we want
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to do every day
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so the code of conduct you know it's not
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an end in itself the end
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that the goal is to live with liver
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values and to act with integrity but the
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code of conduct is a tool for helping
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people get there so it's a document that
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explains
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to associates what we mean when we say
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acting with integrity what do we expect
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them to do and
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this new document it's it's exciting
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because it's
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much more accessible for associates all
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around the world and all across the
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company so
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we want it to be easy to use easy to
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read easy to find what you're looking
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for
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accessible not a bunch of language it
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sounds like it's been written by lawyers
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you know which these documents sometimes
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are so this new draft is
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is i think going to be a great
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contribution and will be really helpful
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to associates
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it is and if an associate has a question
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or doesn't know what to do in a
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situation
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there are other resources that we have
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available right
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yep they've got faqs there's a whole
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website set up for this and
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people can always call ethics of
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compliance and actually
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get an answer to their question if they
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want to yeah that's something i've done
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in my career
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a number of times when something came up
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and i wasn't sure it's better to just
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ask on the front side
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and get advice and it's it's not for
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it's not the ethics department always
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make a decision but they can give you
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advice so that you know
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what the right decision is that's
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aligned with our values and our policies
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that's right exactly right thank you so
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much for
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the time um and thank you i want to say
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a personal level for all your
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partnership the last couple years
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i was just talking to someone a few
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minutes ago and it was a year ago that
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we were
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seeing the united states shut big pieces
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of the economy down and
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and we had enormous uh volume increases
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on things like food and consumables and
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things got really slow in other parts of
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business and there was so much going on
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and you and i have talked at least it
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feels like weekly if not more
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sometimes many times a week and and i
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want to just say thank you for what
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you've done
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for me and my team the things that our
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team has been able to accomplish
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are enabled by by your support and that
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of your team and it means a lot to our
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associates
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they've been amazing the last year well
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we love working with you guys and it's
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great to be part of this company that's
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so fun and so interesting such great
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colleagues and yeah i love it so thank
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you for
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helping to bring me down here and and
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sometimes we'll get to doing these in
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person but not yet yeah we're getting
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closer
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so uh look looking forward to many more
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years ahead thanks rachel
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all right thanks john
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you
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