Target appoints new SVP of technology infrastructure
Retail chain Target said on Monday that it'd named Hari Govind as the new SVP of infrastructure and operations within the company's technology team. Govind will oversee the technology that runs across Target's stores, digital channels, distribution centers, and back-office operations, including the retailer's cloud-and-compute capabilities and network connectivity. He'll report to Target's CIO Mike McNamara.
Prior to his new role at Target, Govind was the group manager on the Infrastructure team at Facebook, where he led strategy and execution to help scale platforms for Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus.
Govind is stepping into a role that's been vacant since the death of Tom Kadlec, who passed away unexpectedly in October.
"Technology is more critical than ever in retail, and Target's team has made tremendous progress building great technology for our guests and store team members," said McNamara. "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."
The timing of Govind's appointment comes just a few weeks after Target was hit with two days of checkout system failures that cost the company an estimated $200 million in sales. Target said the outage was the result of an internal technology issue -- and not a security breach -- that lasted roughly two hours.
"Our technology team worked quickly to identify and fix the issue, and we apologize for the inconvenience and frustration this caused for our guests," the company said in a statement. "After an initial but thorough review, we can confirm that this was not a data breach or security-related issue, and no guest information was compromised at any time."