Target Inc. is reinforcing its digital team, a growing source of its revenue, with a new executive vice president. Prat Vemana is joining the retailer, No. 5 in the 2022 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000, as chief digital and product officer on Oct. 31. He will oversee the company’s digital business, including its Target+ marketplace.

Ecommerce is a growing slice of Target’s total revenue, generating 18.1% of total sales from ecommerce during the six months ended July 30. That’s up from 17.7% in during the same period in 2021. On a yearly basis, Target’s online sales grew more than $13 billion since 2019, hitting $20.03 billion last year, a compound annual growth rate of 71.8% during that time.

“Digital continues to be a major growth driver for Target, and we’re excited for Prat to bring his proven expertise in this area to an elevated role on our leadership team,” CEO Brian Cornell said. “Our team has created a digital shopping experience that is truly best in class, and under Prat’s leadership, our digital business is well-positioned to continue growing for years to come.”

Vemana most recently served as the chief digital officer at health care conglomerate Kaiser Permanente, but has plenty of retail credentials. Before joining Kaiser in 2019, he was the chief product and experience officer at The Home Depot Inc. (No. 4), where he also served as vice president of online for a time. Prior to that, he was vice president of global ecommerce at Staples Inc. (No. 12).

His experience at two omnichannel-oriented retailers will likely serve Target and Vemana well. Target fulfilled 96.6% of sales from stores last quarter, but 17.9% of sales came from ecommerce orders. That means 81.0% of online sales were fulfilled by stores. The Home Depot fulfilled more than half of its online orders from stores last quarter.

Vemana is taking over responsibility from Brett Craig, who served as senior vice president of digital until his promotion to chief information officer in May 2022. In this new leadership team role, Vemana will report to chief guest experience officer Cara Sylvester.

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