The BYU Marriott School of Business presented Kathryn McLay, president and CEO of Walmart International, with the 2025 International Executive of the Year Award. At the award ceremony, McLay shared how she and her team focus on servant leadership as they oversee more than 5,000 stores and hundreds of thousands of employees across 18 countries.
McLay lauded BYU Marriott’s mission and values, citing the school’s dedication to integrity and service as founding principles in effective work—attributes she believes have helped direct her team at Walmart International. “We want to do very big things with low egos,” she explained. “What I'm referring to is that you have to focus more on the purpose than on your own career.”
That bigger picture for her and Walmart International include their company values: “respect for the individual, act with integrity, service to the customer, and strive for excellence,” as McLay described. She summed up these values under the term servant leadership, and her team’s attention to servant leadership is something McLay believes to be a driving force toward continual improvement. “These things sound simple, right? But they’re not actually simple. They’re things that you have to work at every single day,” she said.
She also shared how she views servant leadership as a sign of success because she believes her job is a chance to improve people's lives. “I think a ‘large life’ is being part of something bigger than yourself and having an impact on communities and making a difference,” McLay stated. “When we have a team that is low ego and low agenda, that’s when we’re at our absolute best.”
McLay remarked on the similarities she sees in her company’s mission with that of the university: “Our philosophy is very similar to BYU’s with this sense of ‘enter to learn, go forth to serve.’ As a retailer, every day we are serving—we are a service business. And if you are working at Walmart, you better be learning every day because everything changes around us.”
Even as circumstances change, McLay emphasized how the one aspect that won’t change is Walmart International’s commitment to service, regardless of international location.
While she is grateful for her company’s dedication to servant leadership, McLay recognizes they are not the only ones hoping to make a positive impact on the world. She noted that this award is special to her because of the common ground between BYU and Walmart International. “I’m not just talking about generating more enrollment or driving more sales,” she says. “I’m talking about an alignment that is actually something that transcends academia and transcends business: that is being good human beings.”