McKinney Rogers Develops Leadership Academy to Become Center of Excellence for Major Global Retailer

NEW YORK, Oct. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- McKinney Rogers (www.mckinneyrogers.com) today announced The Leadership Academy program developed by the firm for Walmart will become the retailer's center of excellence for developing accelerated leadership skills for managers.

"With Walmart, we created a customized leadership-development system," commented Damian McKinney, the CEO of McKinney Rogers.  "By combining development, training and operational activities in the context of the company's day-to-day needs, The Leadership Academy delivers far greater impact and relevance than generic management training, key to our integrated approach to business leadership is that the course is developed and delivered by operational leaders."

Recognizing the huge potential of its associates, The Leadership Academy was established in 2009 to develop high-potential talent, increase the speed at which managers are ready for promotion and produce broad leadership skills. Since its implementation, the program has graduated approximately 500 managers across the U.S.

"We know our associates are our greatest asset; investing in the development of our future leaders is essential. Through The Leadership Academy, we have developed talented leaders, managers and associates around the country - providing immersion training and broader development for our leaders," said Celia Swanson, Senior Vice President of Talent Development for Walmart U.S. "We appreciate the partnership with McKinney Rogers and their support in developing a world-class training program that focuses on building high performing teams relevant in today's business environment."

The Leadership Academy was created after Walmart enlisted the help of business execution experts McKinney Rogers to design and direct a comprehensive leadership-development system that took high-potential managers and transformed them into broad leaders.

McKinney Rogers' approach is based on the leadership lessons from the military, with the firm's founder hailing from the UK's Royal Marines. The military has unrivalled expertise in developing individuals that can quickly execute complex missions in the most demanding of environments. McKinney Rogers specializes in taking these lessons and helping align international businesses to deliver exceptional results.

About McKinney Rogers
McKinney Rogers (www.mckinneyrogers.com) is a global firm of business execution experts. Their approach takes its inspiration from military strategy with a series of steps to ensure execution of the business mission effectively. McKinney Rogers has worked with such well respected companies as Bacardi, Diageo, Pfizer, Wal-Mart and Zurich to raise the performance of their leadership teams. McKinney Rogers has operations in the US, UK, Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

About Walmart

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) serves customers and members more than 200 million times per week at over 10,300 retail units under 69 different banners in 27 countries. With fiscal year 2012 sales of $444 billion, Walmart employs 2.2 million associates worldwide. Walmart continues to be a leader in sustainability, corporate philanthropy and employment opportunity. Additional information about Walmart can be found by visiting http://corporate.walmart.com, on Facebook at http://facebook.com/walmart and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/walmartnewsroom. Online merchandise sales are available at http://www.walmart.com and http://www.samsclub.com.

SOURCE McKinney Rogers