Doug McMillon, president and CEO of Walmart, will be the new chairman of the Business Roundtable, taking over from JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon on the first of January 2020.
McMillon will serve a two-year term, the organization said Thursday. He joined the group, which serves as an influential association of CEOs at some of the country’s largest companies, in 2014.
“In the coming months, there will be extensive conversations about America’s future and the role business plays in shaping it,” the executive said in a release. “As chairman, I commit to keeping Business Roundtable CEOs at the forefront of constructive public policy debates as we pursue an agenda of greater growth and opportunity for all Americans.”
Walmart was No. 1 on this year’s Fortune 500, with $514.4 billion in revenue and $6.7 billion in profits.
McMillon’s appointment comes at a critical time for the Roundtable. In August, the group announced a major shift—marked with a Fortune cover story—in its stated purpose, from serving the shareholder first to a more holistic vision that includes pointed references to serving customers, supporting local communities, and prioritizing diversity and inclusion.
That change is “an acknowledgment that business can do more to help the average American,” current chairman Dimon told Fortune.
It also comes at a crucial time for McMillon. The executive has faced pressure to speak out on gun control after two mass shootings at Walmart locations in El Paso, Texas and Southaven, Mississippi this summer. In September, McMillon said the company would no longer sell certain kinds of ammunition, and would ask customers to not openly carry firearms in its stores.
McMillion has also acknowledged the challenges automation could pose to the company’s workforce—the country’s largest. Walmart’s efforts to retrain associates, alongside wage hikes that set a new standard for the retail industry, helped put the company on Fortune‘s Change the World list this year for the fifth straight time—the only company to do so.
“We’re all thinking about this multi-stakeholder benefit and trying to design our system. If you want to think of a company as a system, design the system to benefit all,” McMillon said in an interview with Fortune in August. “So how can you raise wages, increase training, and reduce carbon, and provide low-prices? We believe that it’s possible to deliver, and I find a lot of other likeminded CEOs, as it relates to thinking that way.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Change the World 2019: See which companies made the list
—America’s CEOs seek a new purpose for the corporation
—Why the next recession may feel very different than 2008
—After the Capital One breach, should big business fear the public cloud?
—10 questions to ask in a job interview to really stand out
Subscribe to Fortune’s The Loop newsletter for the latest on the revolutions in energy, technology, and sustainability.
