CIO And Digi VP To Depart UK Retail Giant Asda As Walmart Divorce Woes Settle

Two of the top team behind Asda's £1 billion ($1.31 billion) tech divorce from US retail giant Walmart — which has seen a number of setbacks — are departing the company.

Brit supermarket finds breaking up is hard to do as Walmart-Asda divorce stretches into fourth year

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Carl Dawson, Asda's CIO, and Rob Barnes, VP of digital and technology, are set to leave the UK's third largest supermarket, according to internal communications seen by The Register.

Dawson joined Asda from Marks & Spencer in April 2021, shortly after the company was sold by Walmart for £6.8 billion ($8.9 billion) to retail entrepreneurs Mohsin and Zuber Issa and private equity firm TDR Capital in February 2021.

Soon after, Asda signed a "transitional services agreement" with Walmart to guarantee support for IT systems it inherited for an initial period of three years. Asda then kicked off Project Future to create separate systems including ERP and HR systems to security and store operations, with an initial budget of £189 million ($247 million).

Earlier this year, El Reg revealed that Project Future would not be complete until at least the third quarter of 2025, with Walmart continuing to provide some support, under an agreement which has been extended a number of times.

As for digital veep Barnes, he also joined from Marks & Spencer, where he had been CTO for delivery until January 2024.

The Register understands that Asda's management is saying that Project Future is set to come to its conclusion and staff working on it will naturally leave the business. The remaining deployment and implementation activity is expected to become part of Asda's everyday tech operating model.

The departures of both Dawson and Barnes were announced on a staff call last week followed by a note to the entire business. Technology director Marcus Shaw is to become CIO and while Adrian Berry, who joined in January 2024, will remain CTO.

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An Asda spokesperson told us: "As Project Future nears completion and becomes part of Asda's everyday tech operating model, we are aligning our digital leadership team accordingly."

The spokesperson added that David Devany would join from Iceland Foods early in May as VP eCommerce and digital business. In addition, Barney Burgess, currently interim VP online, is set to take up the role of VP food online and chief analytics officer following Devany's arrival.

"We can also confirm that Carl Dawson and Rob Barnes will leave the business in the coming months and would like to thank them for their contributions and wish them the best for the future," they said.

In March, Asda told its lenders that it expects to spend £175 million ($229 million) on the project to create separate store and back-end enterprise IT systems this year before completion, The Times reported. At a meeting last year, the company projected total costs of £800 million ($1 billion). Asda said its annual costs were expected to halve in 2025 compared to the previous year.

An Asda spokesperson told us at the start of this month: "As per our regular reporting cycle, we recently confirmed to investors that Project Future costs would reduce significantly as the program concludes this year."

• Asda's tech separation from Walmart nears £1B as delays mount
• Brit supermarket finds breaking up is hard to do as Walmart-Asda divorce stretches into fourth year
• Asda tech divorce from Walmart delays cut-over for 55 stores
• Asda hits the brakes on tech tweaks to avoid festive fiasco

According to Asda, it moved off Walmart's SAP ERP system to a new instance of S/4HANA hosted in the Microsoft Azure cloud in January 2024.

In September, the company said it was "prioritizing the conversion" of IT at around 850 retail sites, including smaller supermarkets and Asda Express convenience stores, during the remainder of 2024. However, it then converted the majority of larger stores from early January 2025 onward following the peak Christmas trading period.

In January 2025, The Register revealed it had postponed the tech transition of 55 stores to its new systems. ®