B Kevin Turner

Early life and education

In 1987, Turner earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a concentration in Management from East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma where he was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity. During his college years, he worked full-time as a cashier at Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart

Turner worked nearly 20 years at Wal-Mart. He began working as a cashier at Wal-Mart in 1985 in his hometown of Ada, Oklahoma. While attending college, he rose through the store ranks, to customer service manager, housewares department manager and head office cashier. After several promotions, Turner found himself in the auditing department, where the reports he wrote caught the eye of founder Sam Walton. On Walton’s advice, Turner joined the company's information systems division, where he worked his way through a succession of jobs: business analyst, strategy manager, director, Assistant CIO and then CIO. In 1995, at the age of 29, Turner became the youngest Corporate Vice President and Officer ever named at Wal-Mart. In February 2000, Turner became the Chief Information Officer of Wal-Mart at the age of 34, when former Wal-Mart CIO Randy Mott departed for Dell. As the CIO of Wal-Mart, Turner oversaw Wal-Mart's information technology and worldwide data-tracking system. The division consisted of over 2,000 employees in Bentonville, Arkansas. As CIO, Turner led a team that developed retail-specific applications such as (Retail Link) at Wal-Mart to achieve complete inventory and supply chain transparency.

Sam's Club

In 2002, Turner replaced Tom Grimm as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Wal-Mart-owned retailer Sam's Club, which had over 46 million members and over $37.1 billion USD in annual sales. Under Turner, Sam's Club aggressively cut prices to win over small-business customers. In his last fiscal year as CEO, Sam's Club turned in a 5.8 percent sales growth at stores open at least a year, which was nearly double the 2.9 percent sales growth at U.S. Wal-Mart stores. In addition to his role at Sam's Club, he was also a member of the executive committee at Wal-Mart. Turner served as the President and CEO of Sam's Club until his departure for Microsoft in 2005.

Microsoft

In 2005, Microsoft hired Kevin Turner to be its Chief Operating Officer (the prior COO, Rick Belluzzo, had left the company in 2002 and no replacement had been hired). Turner was hired at Microsoft to instill more process and discipline in the company’s operations and salesforce, which at the time did not even have quarterly notes. Microsoft offered Turner a $7 million up-front payment, and other stock awards to help compensate him for stock-based pay that he lost when he left Wal-Mart. Microsoft also gave Turner 325,000 shares of stock that would vest over a period of many years, beginning in 2008 and running through to retirement. Turner would have been required to forfeit the entire $7 million up-front payment had he left voluntarily or been terminated for cause before completing 12 months of employment. A portion of the hiring bonus would have had to have been repaid had he left voluntarily within three years or been terminated for cause. Turner was also eligible for a bonus of up to the amount of his salary and was enrolled in the company's stock award program, with a target award of 624,000 shares (the actual amount determined by Microsoft's achievement of certain goals). Finally, Turner was offered Microsoft's "executive relocation assistance program," in which the company had arranged for a third party to purchase his current primary residence at its appraised value had it not sold as of a mutually agreed-upon date. Turner accepted the offer and moved his wife and three children to Washington State where, in September 2005, he became the Chief Operating Officer of Microsoft.

From 2005 to 2016, Turner was responsible for the strategic and operational leadership of Microsoft's worldwide sales, field marketing and services organization (SMSG). He also managed support and partner channels, Microsoft stores, and corporate support functions including information technology, licensing and pricing, and operations. His organization included over 51,000 employees in more than 190 countries. In 2009, Turner led and spearheaded Microsoft's entry into the Retail Stores business. Along with Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella and other senior executives, Turner served on the Senior Leadership Team that set the overall strategy and direction for Microsoft.

The company ended the 2015 fiscal year with 8 percent growth and $93.6 billion in revenue through his leadership on the company's transformation. Turner introduced procedures such as a “conditions of satisfaction” document that details what Microsoft will provide each client. A screw-up required a “correction of errors” in which employees autopsied the mistake and laid out steps to ensure it did not happen again. He also created standard scorecards with 30 categories to measure each subsidiary’s performance. At Microsoft, Turner was known for his speeches at partner and sales events that amped up the rivalry with competitors like Oracle, Google and IBM.

In July 2016, after eleven years as COO, Turner left Microsoft to join Citadel LLC. From 2005 to 2016, Turner helped increase Microsoft's yearly revenue from $37 billion to over $93 billion. After his departure, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated that in his time as COO, Turner "built the sales force into the strategic asset it is today with incredible talent, while at the same time more than doubling our revenue and driving customer satisfaction scores to the highest in company history."

Citadel LLC

In July 2016, Turner left Microsoft to become the Vice Chairman of Citadel LLC and the Chief Executive Officer of Citadel Securities. Citadel Securities is a leading market maker, providing liquidity and trade execution to retail and institutional clients. It executes trades of more than a billion shares every day in the United States, as well as a fifth of the country’s options transactions. It is also one of the largest traders of interest rate swaps in the world. Turner's team included Jamil Nazarali, head of Citadel Execution Services, and Paul Hamill, global head of fixed, income, currencies and commodities for Citadel Securities. His appointment occurred after Citadel Securities purchased the designated market-maker business of KCG Holdings and the Automated Trading Desk, a computer-based market making pioneer owned by Citigroup. On January 27, 2017, Turner left his position at Citadel Securities.

Other Roles

In 2010, Turner was elected to the Nordstrom Board of Directors. Turner serves on the technology and finance committees as a part of his board role. In 2017, Albertsons appointed Turner as Vice Chairman of the Board of Managers of AB Acquisition, its direct parent company. He was also named as the Senior Advisor to Albertsons Chairman and CEO, Bob Miller.

Awards and honors

In 1997, Turner became the recipient of the first "Sam M. Walton - Entrepreneur Of The Year" Award, which is the highest honor given at Wal-Mart and is voted on by the Walton Family. In 2003, East Central University named him a distinguished alumnus. Turner was among TIME Magazine's People To Watch In International Business. He was ranked #4 on Fortune Magazine's "40 under 40", was among Business 2.0's The 20 Young Execs You Need To Know and was awarded CIO Magazine's 20/20 Vision Award and CIO 100 Award. In 2007, he was named to the CIO Hall Of Fame by CIO Magazine, as well as listed fifth in CRN Magazine's list of the Top 25 Most Innovative Executives.