Brian Walker is the Senior Vice President, Sales and Onsite Services of W.W. Grainger, Inc., a $17.9 billion leading broad line distributor with operations primarily in North America and Japan. In this role, Brian focuses on driving profitable share gain for complex customers, leveraging the company’s U.S. sales channels and onsite service operations to win with Grainger’s contract customer business.
Brian has held many roles of increasing responsibility at Grainger. Most recently, he served as Chief Product Officer, preceded by Vice President, Digital Architecture and Operations and President of Gamut.com. While headquartered in London, England, he served as Vice President of Strategy and Marketing for Grainger’s Online Business with operations in Canada, Germany, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States. Brian has also led teams responsible for corporate strategy, merchandising and pricing for the Grainger U.S. Business. He joined Grainger in September 2006 as Purchasing Manager.
Prior to joining Grainger, Brian led teams in warehousing, logistics, supply chain and sales operations at McMaster-Carr Supply Company.
Brian holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Wesleyan University, a master’s degree in applied statistics from DePaul University, and an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Brian serves on the Board of Trustees of the Illinois Institute of Technology and is a member of its Board Chair Executive Council, as well as the Board of Advisors for IIT’s Institute of Design. He has served as a founding board member for Wesleyan’s Quantitative Analysis Center and is a current member of Wesleyan’s President’s Council. Brian also is a Lecturer at Carnegie Mellon University for their CIO and CDigitalO programs.