Target has appointed Hari Govind as Senior Vice President of Infrastructure and Operations for the retail chain’s technology team. The post has been vacant since the unexpected death of Tom Kadlec in October 2018.
Govind will oversee cloud-and-compute capabilities, network connectivity and operations for the technology that powers the company’s stores, digital channels, distribution centers and office locations. He has more than 20 years of experience leading engineering and product management teams. Govind most recently served as the group manager of the infrastructure team at Facebook, where he led strategy and execution to scale platforms for Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus. Prior to that, he worked at Microsoft Corp. and Honeywell International, as well as leading teams that built platform capabilities for Bing and retail and supply chain systems for Xbox.
The leadership announcement comes approximately one month after Target experienced two days of checkout system failures that cost the company an estimated $200 million in sales, which Target said was the result of an internal technology issue.
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“Bringing in an executive with Hari’s technical and leadership abilities marks another important step in our journey to create exceptional shopping experiences that redefine what technology can do in retail,” said Mike McNamara, Target’s Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer in a statement. “I’m confident that Hari’s leadership will help us make shopping at Target even easier and more convenient for our guests.”
