Costco Org Chart: Corporate Structure, Board of Directors and Executive Leadership (2026)

Updated October 18, 2026. Figures as of August 30, 2026 (end of fiscal 2026) unless noted. Prepared by Databahn from the FY2026 Form 10-K, the Q3 fiscal 2026 Form 10-Q, the 2025 proxy statement, an October 2026 Form 8-K, the Q4 fiscal 2026 earnings call and Costco’s Executive Management page.

Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST) is led by Ron M. Vachris, President and Chief Executive Officer, with Gary Millerchip as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Hamilton E. James as non-executive Chairman of a 10-member board. The Issaquah, Washington company reports three segments (United States, Canada and Other International) and operated 939 membership warehouses in 14 countries at August 30, 2026, on fiscal 2026 total revenue of $303.2 billion. Sources: FY2026 Form 10-K (filed October 2026) and the 2025 proxy statement.

Costco key facts

Legal name	Costco Wholesale Corporation (Form 10-K, FY2026)
State of incorporation	Washington; began operations in 1983 in Seattle (Form 10-K, FY2026)
Headquarters	999 Lake Drive, Issaquah, Washington 98027 (Form 10-K, FY2026)
Ticker and exchange	COST, The NASDAQ Global Select Market (Form 10-K, FY2026)
Total revenue, fiscal 2026	$303.2 billion (net sales $297.2 billion, membership fees $5.9 billion); net income $9.2 billion (Form 10-K, FY2026, Item 8)
Employees	355,000 at the end of fiscal 2026: 232,000 U.S., 58,000 Canada, 65,000 Other International (Form 10-K, FY2026, Item 1)
Warehouses	939 at Aug. 30, 2026, plus 774 gas stations (Form 10-K, FY2026, Items 1 and 2)
Members	84.1 million paid members, 42.3 million of them Executive members; 150.4 million cardholders (Form 10-K, FY2026, Item 1)
Reportable segments	Three: United States, Canada and Other International (Form 10-K, FY2026, Note 11)
Fiscal year	52/53 weeks ending the Sunday nearest the end of August; fiscal 2026 ended Aug. 30, 2026 (Form 10-K, FY2026)
Independent auditor	KPMG LLP, the company’s auditor since 2002 (Form 10-K, FY2026, Item 8)
Next annual meeting	January 21, 2027 (Form 10-K, FY2026, cover page)

Costco seller intelligence: what the filings show

Costco’s strategic priorities

Costco sells a limited selection at low prices to drive volume and fast inventory turns: fewer than 4,000 active SKUs per warehouse and 9,000 to 11,000 online (10-K). Executive members accounted for about 75.2% of worldwide net sales in fiscal 2026, and on the Q4 call Vachris called membership “the most important item we sell.” The 10-K says Costco expects Kirkland Signature’s share of sales to keep rising.

Growth comes from new buildings and new channels. CEO Ron Vachris restated a goal of 30 net new warehouses a year, and CFO Gary Millerchip said Costco sees a path to that pace for the next 5 to 10 years. Digitally enabled sales passed $33 billion in fiscal 2026, up more than 20% (Q4 earnings call, Sept. 24, 2026). A proposal written in these terms reads like Costco’s own plan.

The full Databahn report maps each priority to the executive who owns it and the programs funded under it.

What Costco’s executives are paid to deliver

Costco’s Fiscal 2027 Executive Bonus Plan, approved Oct. 13, 2026, ties the CEO’s $1.2 million base bonus to sales ($500,000), pre-tax income ($500,000) and environmental and social metrics ($200,000). Other executive officers have a $400,000 base bonus: $160,000 on sales, $160,000 on pre-tax income and up to $80,000 on environmental and social objectives. The sales and pre-tax income portions pay from zero to 120% of target (Form 8-K, Item 5.02, Oct. 2026).

Performance RSUs, the largest piece of pay, required a 3% rise in net sales or a 2% rise in pre-tax income for fiscal 2025, both adjusted for currency. Costco cleared both: pre-tax income of $10.87 billion against a $10.73 billion goal and net sales of $271.78 billion against $271.02 billion (2025 proxy). Officers must hold stock worth three times salary, seven times for the CEO. Sellers who frame value in net sales and pre-tax income are using the two numbers that set executive pay.

The full Databahn report connects each metric to the executives accountable for it.

Costco spending and capital plans

Capital expenditures were $6.4 billion in fiscal 2026, and Costco plans about $7.5 billion for fiscal 2027, mostly for a larger warehouse pipeline and continued supply chain spending. Up to 33 new warehouses, including five relocations, are planned for fiscal 2027 (10-K). Millerchip expects capex growth to slow after fiscal 2027, following three years of outsized increases that began in fiscal 2025 (earnings call).

Cash and short-term investments reached $21.3 billion at Aug. 30, 2026. Another $1.7 billion of lease payments sits in leases signed but not yet started, and $1.1 billion remains on a $4 billion buyback authorization that expires in January 2027 (10-K). Most new spending is going to buildings, depots and systems.

The full Databahn report breaks the capital plan into project areas and the teams that control each budget.

Partnerships and portfolio changes

On the Q4 call, Costco announced a partnership with SCAN Health Plan to build Medicare Advantage benefits, expanded Uber Eats from 17 states to the whole U.S., and extended DoorDash to the U.S., alongside its long-running Instacart relationship in the U.S. and Canada. Average delivery times across the three platforms are under an hour. The filings disclose no acquisitions in fiscal 2026.

Costco also shut down Costco Next, its extended marketplace, and is folding its most popular items and brands into the main app and website. Each partnership adds data, fulfillment and member-experience work between Costco and an outside company.

The full Databahn report details the integration work behind each partnership and the teams running it.

Costco technology and AI initiatives

Personalized sales grew at a triple-digit rate in Q4, and 10% of costco.com orders now include a personalized item. Traffic from AI search grew triple digits for a second straight quarter and converts at the highest rate of any source; Millerchip said teams are cleaning up product data and pages so Costco’s value shows up in large language model answers. Total site and app traffic rose 30% (earnings call).

In pharmacy, Rx mobile pay-ahead now covers more than a third of prescriptions at many U.S. warehouses, alongside pickup lockers. The 10-K says Costco is making substantial investments in IT projects, including digital resiliency, and does no paid digital advertising. Each named program shows where engineering budget is already committed.

The full Databahn report maps the technology behind these programs, with the incumbent vendor in each category.

Risk factors and pressure points

The U.S. and Canada produced 86% of fiscal 2026 net sales and 83% of operating income, and California alone was 26% of U.S. net sales (10-K). The 10-K warns that third-party AI systems may bypass internal controls or lack adequate governance, that AI has sped up cyber threats, and that some third-party logging is incomplete. Tariffs, commodity prices and gasoline demand are also named.

Note 10 lists active litigation, including four March 2026 class actions seeking refunds of IEEPA tariff costs passed to members (a King County court denied Costco’s motion to dismiss Gower on July 17, 2026), privacy suits over pixel trackers on Costco.com, and a Washington second-job class action set for trial March 1, 2027. Risks leadership has written down are a credible place to start a first meeting.

The full Databahn report ties each risk theme to the internal owner and the work underway to address it.

How vendors get approved at Costco

Item 1C of the 10-K says Costco assesses cyber risk against the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, the CIS 18 Critical Security Controls and PCI DSS, with a third party running regular NIST CSF and CIS 18 maturity assessments. Costco reviews selected third parties on a risk-based priority and at varying frequencies, and its testing includes vulnerability scans, internal and external penetration tests, application code scans and allowed-application listing.

Merchandise suppliers carry their own obligations: they are generally contractually required to comply with product safety laws and to meet Costco’s quality, labor, human rights, environmental and animal welfare standards (10-K). Vendors that bring security documentation mapped to NIST CSF and CIS 18 answer the questions Costco’s own program already asks.

The full Databahn report outlines the review sequence a new vendor moves through and who signs off at each stage.

Who owns security and data decisions

The board’s Audit Committee, chaired by Kenneth D. Denman, oversees cybersecurity risk. Chief Information and Digital Officer Javier Polit and his team, including the Vice President of Information Security and CISO, report to the committee regularly. The CISO joined in December 2025 with more than 20 years in pharmacy, finance and consulting, reports to Polit, and Polit reports to the CEO (10-K Item 1C).

Significant incidents go to a Cybersecurity Materiality Committee drawn from IT and Security, Operations, Administration, Finance and Accounting, and Legal, and executives run tabletop exercises. Knowing which committee reviews a purchase shows a seller who has to agree besides the buyer.

The full Databahn report names the leaders below the executive team who run security, privacy and data decisions.

Leadership changes at Costco

• Jan. 2025: Richard Galanti and W. Craig Jelinek left the board; Galanti served as Executive Vice President until January 2025 (2025 proxy).
• Oct. 2025: W. Richard Wilcox, SVP and General Manager of the San Diego Region until October 2025, is now EVP, COO, Southwest Division (10-K).
• Dec. 2025: A new Chief Information Security Officer joined, reporting to Javier Polit (10-K Item 1C).
• Jan. 2026: Gina M. Raimondo, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce, was nominated for the Jan. 15, 2026 annual meeting and signed the FY2026 10-K as a director.
• Feb. 2026: Caton Frates became Senior EVP, COO, Warehouse Operations, U.S. and Mexico, a title Russ D. Miller held in fiscal 2025 (10-K; 2025 proxy).
• Mar. 2026: Claudine Adamo moved from EVP, COO, Merchandising to EVP, Administration, and Sarah George became EVP, COO, Merchandising (10-K).
• Aug. 2026: Adam Self became EVP, COO, Northern Division. Jim C. Klauer, who held that role from 2018, retires Oct. 30, 2026 (10-K).

Each change resets who sets priorities in that part of the company.

The full Databahn report tracks each leader’s background and the mandate they brought to the role.

Systems and business transformations

KPMG named U.S. and Canada revenue as its critical audit matter because recording it moves large volumes of data across multiple IT systems (10-K). Costco reported no changes in internal control over financial reporting in Q3 or Q4 fiscal 2026, so no major finance system cutover was disclosed this year (10-Q Item 4; 10-K Item 9A).

The visible changes are in digital and logistics. Costco replaced its e-commerce comparable sales metric with a digitally-enabled measure in fiscal 2026 (10-Q), is folding Costco Next into its main app and site, and is spending on depot and supply chain capacity (earnings call). It is also evaluating ASU 2024-03, which will require new expense disclosures for fiscal years beginning after Dec. 15, 2026 (10-K). New disclosure and reporting requirements tend to create system work.

The full Databahn report covers which systems are changing and where the next replacement decisions fall.

Shareholder pressure

The 2025 proxy carried one shareholder proposal, from the National Center for Public Policy Research, asking for a report on the financial risks and costs of Costco’s climate commitments. The board recommended against it, saying incremental climate spending has been immaterial to results and that Scope 3 emissions, over 90% of the total, depend on suppliers. A similar proposal from the same group received 1.94% support two years earlier.

Say-on-pay drew 94.70% support at the 2025 meeting. Vote results for the January 2026 meeting are not in the filings used here. Because Costco relies on suppliers for Scope 3 reductions, vendors in its supply chain are part of its climate plan.

The full Databahn report explains how these investor concerns shape the scrutiny new vendors face.

Costco locations by territory

At Aug. 30, 2026, Costco operated 939 warehouses (10-K, Note 1 and Item 2):
• United States: 647 in 47 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico; 96.6 million square feet.
• Canada: 115; 16.6 million square feet.
• Other International: Mexico 43, Japan 37, United Kingdom 29, Korea 20, Australia 15, Taiwan 14, China 7, Spain 5, France 3, Sweden 2, Iceland 1, New Zealand 1; 25.5 million square feet.
• Distribution and logistics: 33.6 million square feet.

The filings do not break out U.S. warehouses by state. For fiscal 2027, Costco plans four openings in Europe, five in Canada and one in Mexico, plus new U.S. markets such as Buffalo, New York and Lawrence, Kansas (earnings call). Warehouse counts show where regional rollouts and decisions concentrate.

The full Databahn report shows which regional leaders and teams sit over each territory.

What Costco management told analysts

On Sept. 24, 2026, Costco reported Q4 net sales of $93.87 billion, up 11.2%, with comparable sales up 9.4% and 6.7% excluding gasoline prices and currency. Millerchip said Costco does not give guidance on specific metrics, but he laid out a fiscal 2027 capex plan of about $7.5 billion and 33 openings, five of them relocations.

Costco received $184 million of IEEPA tariff refunds in Q4, a little over a third of the total it expects, plus a similar amount early in Q1 fiscal 2027, and plans to reinvest most of it in lower member prices. Millerchip named general liability and healthcare as costs growing faster than the rest, and said employee agreements are in year two of three. Offers that cut operating cost line up with what management told investors.

The full Databahn report turns each commitment into the conversation openers that fit it.

Costco org chart FAQ

Who is the CEO of Costco?

Ron M. Vachris has been President and Chief Executive Officer of Costco Wholesale Corporation since January 2024 and a director since February 2022. He was President and Chief Operating Officer from February 2022 to December 2023 (Form 10-K, FY2026).

Who is Costco’s CFO?

Gary Millerchip is Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. He joined from The Kroger Co., where he was Senior Vice President and CFO from April 2019 to February 2024. Tiffany M. Barbre is Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller and signs as Principal Accounting Officer.

Who is the chairman of Costco?

Hamilton E. James is the non-executive Chairman of the Board. He has been a director since August 1988, was Lead Independent Director from 2005 and became Chairman in August 2017 (2025 proxy).

Who is on Costco’s board of directors?

The 10 directors who signed the FY2026 Form 10-K are Hamilton E. James (Chairman), Ron M. Vachris, Susan L. Decker, Kenneth D. Denman, Helena B. Foulkes, Sally Jewell, Jeffrey S. Raikes, Gina M. Raimondo, John W. Stanton and Mary Agnes (Maggie) Wilderotter.

How is Costco organized?

Costco reports three segments: United States (647 warehouses), Canada (115) and Other International (177) at Aug. 30, 2026. Sales fall into Foods and Sundries, Non-Foods, Fresh Foods, and Warehouse Ancillary and Other Businesses such as gasoline, pharmacy, e-commerce and Costco Travel (Form 10-K, FY2026).

Who runs operations at Costco?

Caton Frates is Senior EVP and COO of Warehouse Operations, U.S. and Mexico. Division COOs are Yoram Rubanenko (Eastern), Adam Self (Northern), W. Richard Wilcox (Southwest) and Pierre Riel (International), with Teresa Jones as COO of Global Depots and Traffic and Sarah George as COO of Merchandising (Form 10-K, FY2026).

Who oversees cybersecurity at Costco?

The board’s Audit Committee, chaired by Kenneth D. Denman, oversees cybersecurity risk. The Chief Information Security Officer, who joined in December 2025, reports to Chief Information and Digital Officer Javier Polit, who reports to the CEO (Form 10-K, FY2026, Item 1C).

Who leads technology at Costco?

Javier Polit is Executive Vice President and Chief Information and Digital Officer and has been an executive officer since 2023. He was previously CIO of Mondelez International and The Procter & Gamble Company and Group CIO of The Coca-Cola Company. Jason Harris is Senior Vice President, Ecommerce.

Sources

• Costco Wholesale Corporation Form 10-K for fiscal 2026 (fiscal year ended Aug. 30, 2026), signed Oct. 6, 2026
• Costco Wholesale Corporation Form 10-Q for Q3 fiscal 2026 (quarter ended May 10, 2026), signed June 3, 2026
• Costco Wholesale Corporation proxy statement (DEF 14A) for the Jan. 15, 2026 annual meeting, dated Dec. 4, 2025
• Costco Q4 fiscal 2026 earnings call, Sept. 24, 2026
• Costco Wholesale Corporation Form 8-K (Item 5.02), Fiscal 2027 Executive Bonus Plan, Oct. 2026
• Costco Executive Management page, labeled “As of 12/4/2025,” accessed Oct. 18, 2026

What’s in the full Databahn report on Costco

• How to position your solution against the incumbent vendor in each technology category
• Who to call first, with the reporting context and current mandate for each contact
• The discovery questions that line up with Costco’s bonus metrics and stated priorities
• The questions Costco stakeholders are likely to ask back, with suggested answers
• Contacts below the senior vice presidents for technology, ecommerce, pharmacy, depots and merchandising

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