Lowe's CEO Marvin Ellison left JCPenney to take over the home-improvement retailer during the summer of 2018.

But before he ran JCPenney, he worked for years at major retailers like Home Depot and Target.

Take a look at how Ellison went from a college-aged security guard at Target to the CEO of a major retailer.

Lowe's CEO Marvin Ellison can draw on his many years of retail experience.

Not only has the longtime executive held plenty of leadership positions over the course of his career, but he also knows what it's like to work as a store employee at places like Target.

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Ellison became CEO of Lowe's in 2018. There, he makes a base annual salary of $1.45 million with $6 million worth of restricted stock options, according to the Charlotte Business Journal. But as a college student, he started out with a part-time security gig at Target, which only paid $4.35 an hour.

Here's a look inside Ellison's career: