Welcome to the first edition of News You Can Use. This list is our best attempt at a curated roundup of recent announcements and IT events at the world’s big companies that you can use to inform account plans.

Use it to inform your account plans….and to generally act like you know what’s going on.

Walmart poaches ex-Google, Amazon exec Suresh Kumar for new CTO role

Walmart has hired former Amazon exec Suresh Kumar into a newly elevated role of chief technology and chief development officer, as the big-box retailer aims to compete more with Amazon, Google and other tech giants.

LabCorp discloses data breach affecting 7.7 million customers

LabCorp, a medical testing company, said 7.7 million customers had their personal and financial data exposed through a breach at a third-party billing collections company. The news came just days after the same contractor, American Medical Collection Agency, notified Quest Diagnostics about the full scope of a breach affecting 11.9 million of its patients.

Quest Diagnosis Data Breach: Nearly 12M customers may have had data compromised

Quest Diagnostics, one of the country’s largest providers of diagnostic testing, said that nearly 12 million customers may have had information compromised due to a data breach.

Fortune 500 Data Visualization

The 2019 Fortune 500 list was released this month, and it’s a lot to take in. These two visualizations allow you to explore the Fortune 500 visually. With the map, you can find the U.S. headquarters for each company on the list. On the line chart, you can see how each company has moved through the ranks over the last two decades.

Google recovers from outage that took down YouTube, Gmail, and Snapchat

YouTube, Snapchat, Gmail, Nest, Discord, and a number of other web services suffered from major outages in the US. The root cause was issues with Google’s Cloud service that powers apps other than just Google’s own web services. Google’s issues started at around 3PM ET / 12PM PT, and the company resolved them after more than four hours.

Air Canada says network systems ‘resolved’ — but some delays may continue

Last Tuesday, Air Canada experienced a “network outage” that has affected services including check-in, airport operations and customer call centres, leaving passengers unable to sign in for their flights.

Here’s how a Fiat Chrysler-Renault merger could spark some mega auto deals

Fiat Chrysler’s (FCA) proposed 50/50 merger with Renault could pave the way for a long-awaited M&A (merger and acquisition) boom in the sector, analysts have told CNBC. 

CIO James McGlennon Modernizes 107-Year-Old Liberty Mutual’s IT, Priming The Company For Innovation

Liberty Mutual CIO James McGlennon gives his take on artificial intelligence, robotics, and augmented and virtual reality, how Liberty Mutual works with its different customer constituent groups, what the company does at the business unit level versus the enterprise level, and a variety of other topics.

Gap shares tank 15% on earnings miss, CEO calls quarter ‘extremely challenging.’

Gap Inc. shares are tanking after the apparel retailer on Thursday evening reported quarterly earnings and sales short of Wall Street estimates, and slashed its full-year profit outlook.

JP Morgan Invests in Global Payex to Improve Payments in B2B Space.

Wells Fargo tapped Gary Owen to serve as its chief information security officer, the financial services firm announced Tuesday. Once he assumes the role on May 31, Owen will report to Saul Van Beurden, Wells Fargo’s new head of technology.

Focused on ‘governance and controls,’ Wells Fargo taps new CISO

Wells Fargo tapped Gary Owen to serve as its chief information security officer, the financial services firm announced Tuesday. Once he assumes the role on May 31, Owen will report to Saul Van Beurden, Wells Fargo’s new head of technology.