What it’s like to be mentored by Walmart CEO Doug McMillon

Good morning. I’m always fascinated by who CEOs turn to for feedback and who they choose to mentor outside their companies. Some relationships develop organically by working with people who become friends after you leave. (I’ve been lucky enough to stay in touch with former bosses like Norman Pearlstine and numerous colleagues over the years.)

There are also leaders whose names appear because they provided advice to another CEO or made a meaningful move. one of the names is WalmartDoug McMillion Outgoing CEO Next month after 12 years at the helm. Much will be written about his legacy in transforming the world’s largest retailer into a formidable competitor in the digital space. But Cara Vernon, CEO of The Honest Company, recently told a story about him that stuck with me.

Vernón said she had the opportunity to meet McMillion for about 30 seconds at an event about a year ago. Instead of talking about her $383 million company’s business with the $704 billion Walmart, she took a different tack: “I said, ‘I want to be an extraordinary CEO. You are, in my opinion, one of the best CEOs of our time. So, if I could lend you a little bit more of my time, I’d love to ask you a question or two.”

McMillion shared his email with Vernón, who has been CEO since 2023, and asked her to stay in touch. “I thought it would be like a Zoom call, but he invited me to come to Bentonville with one of my leaders and set us up for a full day of one-on-one meetings,” she said. “He connected us with everyone we needed to know strategically and everyone on the executive team that he thought might be able to help me build a strong executive team in the C-suite. There was no agenda, and it was the fourth quarter, a very busy season for retailers.”

She compared her experience in Bentonville to working for a regional dance company and being invited backstage to watch the New York City Ballet rehearse “The Nutcracker.” “If one day I can observe what they do best, I will always realize my potential as a leader,” said Vernón, who brought in the vice president of sales. “When you meet someone who you think has signature business brilliance and realize they’re just regular people trying to live a good life and trying to be kind to others, it helps to put your odds in perspective.”

It’s clear she was moved by Macmillan’s desire to help her in a meaningful way. “I’m Afro-Latina. I’m a woman…People are changing in these companies that we run. Their generational values are changing. Their appearance is changing. The companies that we love are going to be run by different types of people in the next 20 or 30 years,” she said. “I wish that, in our department of CEOs, we could spend more time helping to mentor, grow and build each other so that maybe we could become a stronger institution and do the right things for the business, our people, our culture and our society. We are one, but we don’t have to be.”

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady: dianebrady@fortune.com

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