Latriece Watkins Takes the Helm at Sam's Club After 25 Years Inside Walmart

An intern-to-CEO file that is still rare

Latriece Watkins began 2026 as president and chief executive of Sam's Club, a homecoming inside Walmart after more than 25 years at the company. She joined as an intern, later merchandised the warehouse club in the early 2000s, and has now been handed the banner that competes with Costco for bulk households and small businesses.

WWD's Women in Power 2026 package flagged the appointment as one of the year's clearest examples of an operator rising through operations rather than arriving as an outside celebrity hire.

What Sam's Club actually is

It is a membership business with fuel, fresh food and business wholesale attached. Growth depends on sign-ups, trip frequency and private-label mix, not on a single fashion season. Watkins's brief is to keep that engine compounding.

Why the appointment has global weight

Walmart is one of the world's largest private employers. Putting a career company woman over a major U.S. banner is a signal about who gets the P&Ls that print real cash, not just the titles that print well in a magazine.