Brynt Parmeter, former Walmart exec, tapped to be DOD’s first-ever Chief Talent Management Officer
The Defense Department has selected Brynt Parmeter — a former Army officer who recently left his latest post as a Walmart personnel executive — to serve as its inaugural Chief Talent Management Officer.
“His first day [as CTMO] is today,” a Pentagon spokesperson told DefenseScoop on Monday, shortly after the hiring decision was announced.
In this brand new capacity for DOD, Parmeter is set to help steer the making and facilitation of the department’s anticipated “total force’” talent acquisition and management strategy.
Broadly, he’s now responsible for helping maintain and reform remote and hybrid work options, promoting the application of associated enabling technologies, and introducing creative career pathways and other opportunities to improve recruitment and retention. Parmeter will engage with stakeholders across all military components, the Office of the Secretary of Defense — and with relevant non-governmental entities.
This new position resides in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.
The Pentagon’s establishment of this nascent CTMO role to improve talent management comes as the U.S. military is facing stark recruiting challenges — and DOD components are also struggling to compete against the private sector to hire personnel in high-tech fields like space and cyber.
“Growing and shaping our workforce is critical for achieving DOD’s mission to defend the nation now and in the future. That’s why we created and prioritized the new senior-level position of the CTMO,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said in a statement.
During his decades-long career so far, Parmeter led talent management efforts for roughly 160,000 service members at U.S. Army Human Resources Command and, most recently, served as Walmart’s head of “non-traditional talent.” According to DOD’s announcement, strategies Parmeter informed at that retail giant “resulted in the hiring of about 80,000 service members and military spouses per year.”
