Target CIO Mike McNamara discusses retirement announcement
Target Chief Information Officer (CIO) Mike McNamara, who has headed up the retailer's IT operations since 2015, is set to retire in 2022.
“I’ve always been planning for Target to be my last job. I’ve loved every minute of my time here, but professionally and personally, the timing is great to begin the process of retiring and transitioning to a new CIO,” he says in an online post.
“The technology team and platform are in brilliant shape and our business is already taking on its next growth chapter.”
Discussing his guiding vision for the tech team, McNamara comments: “Technology was and is too important to outsource — it plays an enormous role in determining the winners of any industry.”
“We focused on developing phenomenal in-house expertise and capabilities and have custom built a tech platform that’s scalable, stable and secure.”
“I pushed for ruthless prioritisation and greatly reduced the number of tech projects underway so we could focus on doing fewer but bigger things to help grow and modernise our business.”
These days McNamara is surrounded by “over 4,500 of the brightest technologists and data scientists in the US and India that help make Target one of the best omnichannel retailers out there.”
“I didn’t come here for a participation trophy and I’m so proud of technology’s role in making Target a retail winner.”
And there is a huge opportunity ahead for technology to continue setting the retailer apart as “an incredible place to work and shop.”
Target says that it will conduct a "thorough internal and external search" for a new CIO.
