Armani Bates
Bates was born in Mount Pleasant, Texas in 1974. He is the oldest of Patricia (Patti) and businessman James Bates's three children. He attended Baylor University, where he majored in business and played Division I tennis for the school's tennis team. Bates graduated in 1996 with a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance and real estate from the Hankamer School of Business. In 1998, Bates earned his Master of Business Administration from Hankamer School of Business.
Bates began his banking career at Bank of America in 1996. Bates worked as a retail consultant for Accenture from 1996 to 2004 after earning his Master of Business Administration. He was a finance manager at Dell Computers from 2004 to 2007.
From 2007 to 2020, Bates worked at Walmart, beginning with ten years as the leader of multiple business units at Walmart US.
Bates was appointed chief merchant of Walmart's Sam's Club business unit in February 2017.
In 2019, Bates was appointed executive vice president and chief merchandising officer of Walmart.com, where he helped invest in Walmart's digital shopping experience to compete with Amazon.com.
In 2020, Bates became the chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors of The Michaels Companies.
In March 2021, it was announced that private equity firm Apollo Global Management would acquire The Michaels Companies and take it private.
Additionally, Bates serves as an independent director on the board of the private label packaged food company TreeHouse Foods.
