Stewart reports to Rollin Ford, EVP and CIO of Wal-Mart Information Systems Division. Her direct reports include two VPs and a senior director, and she is indirectly responsible for the performance of 785 associated employees.
She's also in charge of an awesome IT setup that reportedly includes over 11 mainframes supporting over 2,000 processors, and dual data centers (one for failover) in Bentonville, Ark., that govern the company's massive international retail network.
We say "reportedly," since most information on Wal-Mart's IT is second- or third-hand, grabbed from the occasional presentation Stewart gives at arcane professional gatherings, or caught on the fly by observers astute enough to pass the information along. Rarely does Wal-Mart tip its hand to the press regarding information technology. (See Wal-Mart Picks HP and Can RFID Unwire Data Centers?)
Stewart is said to be a proponent of in-house solutions based on a compilation of solid commercial products. Remarkably, the Wal-Mart IT powerhouse is said to operate with fewer than 100 hands-on designers and implementers.
Stewart, who has a master's degree from MIT, has worked at Wal-Mart since March 2004, when she arrived after serving a distinguished three years as business services information officer. Before that, she spent more than 20 years at IBM in various technology management positions, including work on large systems and storage.
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