Doug McMillon: The southern charmer taking over Walmart's retail empire

At Walmart's annual meeting last year Doug McMillon took the stage and made a cocktail. He poured a can of Coca-Cola into a glass of cumin, black pepper and lemon juice to make an Indian masala coke. "Can you start to imagine what that tastes like?" he asked.

Mr McMillon, head of Walmart's international business, needed a guinea pig: "Where is Mike Duke?" he asked. "Mike, c'mere." Mr Duke, his boss and Walmart's chief executive, came forward, took a long slurp, and declared "fantastic" - unconvincingly. As he returned to his seat, Mr McMillon said: "You know that taste you have in your mouth right now? That taste is gonna be there for about 48 hours." The audience of Walmart employees burst into laughter.

The moment was typical of Mr McMillon, who is renowned as a soft-spoken southern charmer - but one with a hard edge. That day he came across like a precocious teenager having fun at the expense of his ponderous father. Now it is time for him to take over the family shop. Walmart said this week that Mr McMillon would become its chief executive on February 1.

The 47-year-old is very much a child of Walmart, where he has worked for nearly three decades, schooled in the folksy yet ruthless ways of its founder Sam Walton. He grew up in Walmart's home state of Arkansas and is a favourite of the children of "Mr Sam". Their near 50 per cent stake in Walmart gives them the final say on big decisions at head office in Bentonville, as well as a $130bn fortune.

Mr McMillon will be taking over a business that, with sales of $469bn last year, ranks as the world's biggest company, but he will inherit a raft of challenges. Walmart has been too slow to change in the US, where its sales are falling, and too hasty overseas, where he has increased annual revenues by nearly $37bn but made mistakes in a rush to expand in China and Brazil. He is also likely to be in charge at the conclusion of a corruption probe that began with bribery allegations in Mexico but has extended to Brazil, China and India.

Mr McMillon first worked for Walmart as a teenage warehouse hand in the summer of 1984. He met his wife Shelley at another summer job at the Bank of Bentonville. In 1990, while he was studying for his MBA at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma, he rejoined Walmart as a trainee buyer at store 894.

Robert Morris, a friend at the time, recalls winning a church basketball tournament with Mr McMillon. "He was literally one of those guys everyone liked. He had it all. He was good looking, good at sports, he was smart, he had great work ethic," he says. "All the guys loved him and all the girls loved him too."

Mr McMillon moved to Walmart headquarters in 1991. Arriving then, the year before Mr Walton died when he was still chairman, gave him first-hand Mr Sam stories that Mr Duke, a later arrival, never had. On his first day, Mr McMillon found a note on his desk complaining that fishing line at Kmart was cheaper than Walmart's. He handed it to his boss, who reacted with horror: "This is from Sam Walton. Have you fixed it?" The lesson, according to Mr McMillon, was to pay attention to detail and act with urgency.

He rose through the ranks mostly as a merchant picking Walmart products. Then in 2006 he took charge of Sam's Club, Walmart's buy-in-bulk warehouse store, before becoming chief of its international business in 2009.

Mike Cockrell, a former executive who worked for him in India, says that Mr McMillon set about visiting the most important markets - and brought his wife and two sons. "It sort of humanised him in all of the countries. And it gave his family a good understanding of what his job was. The reason he's going to be gone a lot."

On the job Mr McMillon is deliberate and decisive, Mr Cockrell adds. "He's got high standards for people that work with him or around him. He's got a very low tolerance for people who make errors - and that is a Walmart thing. He'll allow you to fail once. You don't want to make the same mistake twice."

Walmart's critics say it underpays its staff, a charge the retailer rejects. John Marshall of the United Food and Commercial Workers union says: "The jury is out on Doug McMillon." The optimistic view is that he will do things differently. "The cynical view is that the choice of McMillon, who has been the heir apparent for many years, represents a continuation of Bentonville's rigidly anti-worker philosophy."

Cameron Smith, a Bentonville headhunter who works with Walmart and its suppliers, says Mr McMillon is one of the few genuine "keepers of the culture". That moniker is often applied to Don Soderquist, an executive who became Mr Walton's standard bearer (and wrote that he founded the company on "principles found in the Bible"). When Mr Smith shared a table with both men this year, he says, "I reached over and snapped a picture because I thought, wow, this is past and future".

Leslie Dach, who stepped down this year as a Walmart executive, says you can believe in the culture and also push for modernisation. He stresses that Mr McMillon has done both. Analysts say Walmart needs to change in the US because its giant Supercenters are getting old as shoppers turn to convenience stores and ecommerce. In several emerging markets, Walmart is yet to crack the right combination of pricing, products, store design and location.

At this year's annual meeting, Mr McMillon had his boss performing again. Calling Mr Duke on stage, he said: "We've never seen him demonstrate his athletic ability." He had brought a set of football goalposts guarded by a Brazilian keeper and wanted Mr Duke to take a penalty kick. Mr Duke had other ideas, bringing in a ringer to take the shot. "That's not right," Mr McMillon complained. Mr Duke's stand-in missed the goal, blazing the ball high over the bar (he was English). Sam Walton's children need Mr McMillon to be a surer shot.

The writer is US retail correspondent

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