When Walmart promoted Nancy Stewart to senior vice president (SVP) and chief technology officer (CTO) reporting to Linda Dillman, the chief information officer, she was one of two women in high level IT positions at the multi-billion company in 2005.

As SVP and CTO, Ms. Stewart led Wal-Mart’s infrastructure, as well as the technology for the company’s worldwide operations, facilities, and systems. Walmart’s 6,700- stores ran software and hardware from big data management companies like Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, and other major vendors.

Stewart was responsible for over 11 mainframes supporting 2,000 processors, and two data centers in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Before joining Wal-Mart in 2004 as vice president of large systems and infrastructure, Stewart served three years as a business services information officer at General Motors from 2000 to 2004.

One of the pioneering women in corporate America, Stewart was the first black female appointed vice president at IBM in 1991. Her R&D team developed the hardware and software for the market-leading 4381 computer system. Stewart has a master’s degree from MIT.