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Cognizant Adds Sam Club’s Becky Schmitt as EVP, CPO
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Cognizant is bringing aboard Becky Schmitt, SVP and chief people officer (CPO) at Walmart’s Sam’s Club, as its new EVP and CPO, beginning Feb. 1. Schmitt will take over for retiring CPO James Lennox, who is leaving Cognizant after 16 years with the company.
“To succeed Jim, I am pleased to announce that we have hired Becky Schmitt as our new EVP and Chief People Officer,” Cognizant CEO Brian Humphries wrote in an email to employees. “Becky joins the Executive Committee, reporting to me, and will be based in New York City. She brings 24 years of experience in developing talent and designing and delivering modern, market-leading HR strategies globally.”
Schmitt spent 21 years with Accenture working in HR, before joining Walmart in February 2016, first as VP of HR and SVP of HR, before being elevated to her current role at Sam’s Club, where she oversees employee experiences and the career development of 100,000-plus employees across nearly 600 locations
“In our people-intensive business, all the value we create for our clients comes from having the most skilled and engaged talent,” Humphries said. “As our CPO, Jim’s been deeply involved in leading all aspects of people management on a vast scale, whether building our recruitment engine to attract world-class, diverse talent, developing a future-ready workforce through continual reskilling and multi-skilling, or strengthening and expanding our leadership talent pool.”
