OREANDA-NEWS. October 3, 2012. At the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting on Sunday, President Clinton asked me a provocative question: "If the new president of Libya asked you to open a store in Tripoli, would you consider it?"

At the heart of the President’s question was his belief that business has a critical role to play in promoting sustainable development around the world. His question was not just about Libya but about how to bring business investment – dollars – to the places that need it most. It was about how to help more people achieve a better life.

Times have changed, haven’t they? The world has higher expectations of all companies and especially ours – and we welcome those expectations. They have made us a better company and led to better outcomes for our customers and communities. Business can lead. Business must lead. And Walmart should always be right at the front.

The CGI theme this year was “Designing for Impact.” I’m an engineer by training, and I loved this approach. I really believe that, in order to lead, we have to be intentional about design on the front end so that we get better outcomes on the back end. That’s true whether you’re creating a new product or driving change on big issues.

Now, we don’t claim to have this all figured out. But we have learned a few things along the way (sometimes the hard way). Today, I want to share a little about our approach.

It starts with knowing our role. We recognize we have a responsibility to lead that comes with our size and scale, and we see opportunity where others might see risk.

Next, we remember who we’re working for – the global emerging middle class. They are our customers, or they will be. They are fighting for their families, and we’re going to fight for them.

Then, we get down to actually leading an initiative and delivering the promise of our scale. At this point, we’ve found we have to look at three things: metrics, systems, and culture.