By 2021, Walmart's Spark delivery platform — originally launched in 2018 — had grown to 15K weekly trips. But the product was buggy, unreliable, and drivers were losing trust. The matching system was inconsistent, outages were common, and app reviews were slipping. Internally, the team was still building features, but the foundation was cracking.

My Approach: I led a company-wide effort to rebuild driver trust, prioritize app reliability, and deliver clarity in the user experience. Here's how we did it:

• Listened first: Ran driver interviews to uncover the root problems — from inconsistent payouts and confusing trip flows to deep frustration with app reliability.
• Told the story with evidence: Presented driver quotes and data to senior leadership in a powerful narrative that made one thing clear: before we scaled, we had to fix what was broken.
• Facilitated alignment: Led a 3-day cross-functional workshop that brought product, ops, data science, and design together to define the core problems and commit to shared workstreams.
• Crafted the roadmap: Authored a white paper outlining the end-to-end customer journey, mapped to outcomes and investments. I circulated it across teams to secure buy-in.
• Rebuilt the engine: Identified the need to transition our static model to a ML-based trip matching logic and kicked off a deep dive with the Data Science Team.
• Redesigned the driver experience: Refreshed the driver app UX to remove friction points and increase confidence in the trip process.
• Shifted the culture: Reoriented the product and engineering team from chasing features to delivering operational excellence — every fix had to drive real-world reliability and trust. We developed and aligned customer facing metrics across the org.

Within 1.5 years:

📈 Weekly trips grew from 15K → 115K
🚫 Reduced critical outages by 70%
⭐ App Store rating improved from 3.5 → 4.7
🏆 Recognized internally with Walmart product awards
🛻 This scale and infrastructure also enabled Walmart to launch Walmart GoLocal — a last-mile delivery service now powering other retailers like Home Depot

What colleagues say about working with Alicia on high-impact product initiatives:

"Alicia's ability to connect with users and understand their needs is unparalleled; she brings invaluable insights to every project."

"Alicia led Spark at Walmart with both strategic depth and operational rigor. She was my go-to for everything from team dynamics to product vision. Her natural magnetism builds trust and lasting collaboration."

"In my 40+ years of global retail experience, this delivery operation is one of the very best programs I have ever experienced in all round retail and not just in delivery. You should all be very proud of what you've achieved in such a short 15-month period."