Mike Moore

Executive Vice President and President of Supercenters Walmart U.S. and Puerto Rico

If you ever want to find Mike Moore, one of the best places to look would be his flying office. As vice president of Walmart stores and Supercenters, Moore is flying on Walmart’s private jet to one of the more than 3,800 stores across the U.S. on a weekly basis.

His job is primarily operation and running of those stores, and his visits consist of making sure each store is staffed and runs well, has the appropriate goods in stock, and that everything is clean and neat. And, of course, ensuring the customer is well taken care of.

His job with Walmart started because of a career fair that he attended as a student at Missouri Southern State University. Just before he was set to graduate he attended the job fair and ended up participating in an on-campus interview with Walmart. He was offered a job as an assistant manager at the Carthage Walmart. At the time, he viewed it merely as a stepping stone for a different career path.

“I grew up in a retail family and the last thing I wanted to do was retail,” he said. “When I got the job offer I thought it would only be for a short period of time. But things took off and Walmart started growing really fast and there were lots of opportunities. I found myself after a few years liking what I was doing and the responsibilities they gave me. I ended up staying long term … I just kind of worked at it and found that I was good at it and just followed the opportunities.”

Today he’s one of Walmart’s top executives, overseeing millions of employees. But he still considers the best part of the job to be the chance to take care of individuals.

“It may sound cliché or corny, but the best part of the job is the people you work with,” said Moore. “It’s fun to look at people who started out with you and who have progressed and grown. I travel every single week out to the stores, and I run into people who I worked with along the way and I see how they have progressed in their careers. That’s a fun and rewarding part of the job.”

In many ways, he credits Missouri Southern for that valuable life lesson. He said he thinks fondly of his time at MSSU because he developed some great relationships there, especially with the professors. He points to Terry Marion, professor of management in the business department, as the impetus to his approach to leadership and management.

“He talked a lot about being an entrepreneur and capitalism, and he would use Walmart in his examples,” Moore said. “If it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have thought about Walmart as a career. Oftentimes when you go to college, you don’t think about how it’s an opportunity to network. You can learn a lot of things along the way and get some good basic skills, but the people you meet will have a bigger influence on your life.

“Mr. Marion’s influence was huge for me. He talked about business and initiative and having a sense of urgency, and those are all things I have taken note of and applied in my career. That’s why I have encouraged my own kids to make themselves available to things and add a lot of value to their experience in college. There are so many things that a college like Missouri Southern has to offer – so many things that I would have liked to have participated in. You have the rest of your life to work, let college be your chanced to grow as a person.”