The Slatest

Walmart VP of Communications Reportedly Resigns for Lying on Résumé

At Walmart HQ.

Photo by Katherine Welles/Shutterstock

Walmart’s chief spokesman, David Tovar, recently announced in an email to journalists that he was leaving the company, Bloomberg News reports:

“We all know the first rule of journalism is ‘don’t bury the lead’ so here goes: after eight amazing years, I’ve decided to leave Wal-Mart at the end of the month,” Tovar said in the message. “I have loved every second of every minute I’ve been with the company and I don’t have enough room in this e-mail to give justice to the life-changing experience of working for the world’s largest retailer.”

It turns out that Tovar may, in fact, have buried the lead: Bloomberg also reports that his resignation followed the company’s discovery he’d lied about graduating from the University of Delaware:

While conducting additional due-diligence screening, which is standard for employees who reach a certain level, Wal-Mart discovered he never received the degree, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. Tovar, 40, joined Wal-Mart in 2006 after working for the tobacco and snack-food company Altria Group Inc. (MO)

An academic-records official from the University of Delaware confirmed to Bloomberg News that Tovar never got the diploma.

Tovar ignored Bloomberg’s queries about his résumé, the article says, but did send them a cheerful boilerplate message about leaving Walmart. “As a person from the Northeast, I never thought I’d take a job in Arkansas and then stay here for eight years,” he wrote, embodying Gawker writer Tom Scocca’s definition of smarm. “It’s been an amazing experience and I’ll definitely miss it.”