Meet Future Leader in Convenience: Drew Dickerson

STILLWATER, Okla. — While attending Oklahoma State University in 2005 to obtain a bachelor’s degree in business administration, Drew Dickerson started his convenience store career at OnCue Marketing, based in Stillwater, Okla., and operating 60 stores. Because of his strong work ethic, he was quickly promoted to general manager of a high-volume store. 

However, he left the company, and the c-store market, to pursue sales and account management positions in other industries, while also earning his MBA from Oklahoma Christian University. After nearly 10 years away, he returned to OnCue Marketing as a merchandising assistant and the third member of the company’s merchandising team. 

While gaining experience, he became a certified convenience category manager through industry trade association NACS, and was promoted to category manager of dispensed beverage and roller grill in 2017. He has helped to open more than one-quarter of the stores in the chain, and works closely with retail operations, marketing, pricebook and vendors on a product mix that delivers profit. 

Dickerson is always evolving OnCue’s beverage and food offer to accommodate changing consumer trends and improve current practices, and looks beyond each store’s demographics to their purchase patterns to tailor the offer to each store. Additionally, he has gone above and beyond to improve the company’s roller grill and beverage practices, which has increased margins and decreased waste.

He also provides category recommendations to support merchandising projects and planogram development in other categories throughout the chain. And when developing the chain’s offer for his categories, he partners with the creative team to ensure the right presentation not only for his categories, but also for the overall customer experience, according to his peers.

Being active within every store, and listening to customers and employees to get their feedback, is just as important to Dickerson as reviewing data, spreadsheets and sales numbers. He often speaks at high schools to share his marketing experience and inspire the next generation.