People on the Move: GetUpside, Impact 21, Parker's, Stewart's Shops & VERC Enterprises

Melissa Kress

NATIONAL REPORT — Retailers, wholesalers and suppliers in the convenience store industry are only as good as their management teams and employees. In this special roundup, Convenience Store News runs down the most recent executive changes at the top in the industry. 

Matthew Pugh, Alto-Shaam
Matthew Pugh, Alto-Shaam

Alto-Shaam

Alto-Shaam promoted Matthew Pugh to the role of regional sales manager. He will be responsible for developing and managing relationships with Alto-Shaam's stakeholders across the Mid-South Region, including design consultants, specifiers and end users. He will also play a key role in helping to increase demand for Alto-Shaam's range of kitchen equipment solutions through focused education and training.

Pugh joined Alto-Shaam in 2015 as a business development specialist and was promoted within three years to business development manager.

Convenience Distribution Association

The Convenience Distribution Association (CDA) elected John Prickette, GSC Enterprises Inc. as chair for 2021.

Prickette is vice president of sales and marketing at GSC Enterprises. He began at GSC working in the warehouse and transportation before moving into the position of division manager, where he served for 13 years. He has been in his current role for seven years and with GSC for 20 years.

Getty Realty Corp.

Danion Fielding, Getty Realty Corp.'s vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer, will resign later this year for personal reasons. Current plans call for Fielding to continue to serve in his role until a successor can be found. In connection with his departure, Getty has commenced a search for a new Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer.

GetUpside

GetUpside hired Kristen Thiede as the company's first chief people officer. Prior to joining GetUpside, she recruited, hired, trained and led teams of hundreds of people across offices and continents at companies like Two Sigma, Starry and Google.

Impact 21

Tom Newbould joined Impact 21 as Senior Principal Consultant. He will serve as a strategist, offering thought leadership and insights for programs and market differentiation, competitive advantage and go-to-market strategies using Impact 21's methodologies and toolsets.

Newbould has spent 32 years in the petroleum and convenience industry, most recently as senior vice president of Retail Marketing, Warehousing, and Retail Services at TravelCenters of America.

Lancer Worldwide

EJ Morrow, global president, will depart Lancer Worldwide on Nov. 30 to become CEO of Clarus Corp., an entity in the office furniture space. Executive Vice President Scott Adams will serve as global president on an acting basis.

Other notable changes to the organizational structure are:

  • Marc Phillis, managing director of EMEA, will assume leadership of global sales in addition to his current responsibilities;
  • Brad Davis, director of Applied Technologies, will lead the Product Management Group;
  • John Hawkins, vice president of Sustaining Excellence, will assume overall leadership for the Engineering team;
  • Ed Lilley, vice president of operations, will assume a supervise role for all Latin American and Mexico business units; and
  • Laurie Boxwell, managing director of the Australian/New Zealand businesses, will assume a leadership role in the Asian market.  

Parker's

Parker's founder and CEO Greg Parker was recognized as a Legacy Leader in the September 2020 issue of Georgia Trend magazine. To celebrate the magazine's 35th anniversary, the magazine spotlighted 15 business leaders across the state who have made a long-term impact on their communities and on the state as a whole.

In recognizing Parker, the magazine said the Parker's brand is "synonymous with clean, friendly, profitable and philanthropic." The article also highlighted Parker's $5-million gift to Georgia Southern University as well as the company's $1-million endowment to the emergency and trauma center at Memorial University Hospital and ongoing Fueling the Community donations to support schools in Georgia and South Carolina.

PepsiCo Inc.

PepsiCo Inc. appointed Athina Kanioura to executive vice president, and chief strategy and transformation officer. She reports to chairman and CEO Ramon Laguarta.

In this new role, Kanioura will lead PepsiCo's end-to-end strategy to win both as a total company and in key markets, including the company's digitalization and data strategy. She will also lead company-wide transformation — ensuring that PepsiCo's scale is leveraged as the company focuses on accelerating growth and identifying areas of cost efficiency and optimization.

Prior to joining PepsiCo, Kanioura was the chief analytics officer and global head of Applied Intelligence at Accenture, where she specialized in applying AI and analytics to drive business value. She specializes in transforming businesses with emphasis on data and technology, and brings many years of practical experience globally in industries such as telecommunications, oil and gas, financial services, and consumer packaged goods, having worked with companies such as P&G, Unilever, Philip Morris, Vodafone and BP.

Punchh

Punchh appointed three industry veterans to leadership roles in the company.

Raju Malhotra, Punchh's new chief product and technology officer, brings more than 20 years of experience. He most recently served as senior vice president and general manager of Marketing Cloud at Salesforce. Previously, he served as chief product and technology officer at Vista Equity Partners-owned company, Khoros, and worked at Microsoft for 12 years in roles of increasing responsibility ultimately culminating in his position as director of Microsoft Online.

Don Wight comes on board as the company's chief revenue officer. In the role, he leads all customer-facing organizations including sales, marketing, customer success and business development. He previously served as chief revenue officer at top software companies including Demandbase and Jaspersoft.

In addition, Anish Mehta joins Punchh as chief financial officer (CFO). He is responsible for the finance, professional services, human resources, IT and operations functions. He previously served as CFO at Clover, and in finance and operations roles at First Data, CBRE & Credit Suisse.

Stewart's Shops

Gary Dake, president of Stewart's Shops, was inducted into the Tech Valley Business Hall of Fame on Sept. 23. Junior Achievement, in partnership with the Center for Economic Growth, honors individuals for their innovation in business and community involvement.

Individuals are chosen because they have made outstanding contributions to free enterprise and have set new standards for future business leaders while serving as role models for young people. Their accomplishments demonstrate business excellence, courageous thinking and actions, vision and innovation, and community mindedness.

Nick Vercollone, VERC Enterprises
Nick Vercollone, VERC Enterprises

VERC Enterprises

VERC Enterprises promoted Nick Vercollone to director of Car Wash Operations. In his new role, Vercollone will oversee the operations of the company's eight car washes. This includes supervising the individual managers at each location as well as overseeing the maintenance, and how the car washes connect with the communities they serve.

Vercollone has been with VERC Enterprises for three years although he admits that he has unofficially been a part of the family-owned business for much longer, spending time at the car washes as a child.

VERC Enterprises also promoted Courtney Buckley to director of Talent Management. In this role, she will be responsible for ensuring the company's priority is on growing and maintaining a culture of employee engagement, development, satisfaction and retention.

About the Author

Melissa Kress

Melissa Kress

Melissa Kress is Executive Editor of Convenience Store News. She joined the brand in 2010. Melissa handles much of CSNews’ hard news coverage, such as mergers and acquisitions and company financial reports, and the technology beat. She is also one of the industry’s leading media experts on the tobacco category.

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