Alex Miller, who became president and CEO of Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. in early September, has some big shoes to fill. Not only does he have to follow the company’s iconic founder Alain Bouchard and his successor, the accomplished Brian Hannasch, as CEO, but he is also only the third executive in the company’s almost 45-year history to hold that title.
Retail entrepreneur and philanthropist Bouchard, who currently holds the position of executive chairman, founded Alimentation Couche-Tard with one c-store in Quebec in 1980.
Now retired, Hannasch serves as a special advisor to Bouchard and Miller.
Laval, Quebec-based Couche-Tard operates in 31 countries and territories, with more than 16,700 stores. Its network includes more than 7,100 stores in the United States under the Circle K and Holiday Stationstores banners, and approximately 2,100 in Canada under the Circle K and Couche-Tard banners.
- Alimentation Couche-Tard is No. 2 on CSP’s 2024 Top 202 ranking of U.S. c-store chains by store count.
The global convenience-store retailer planned for an “orderly and seamless” succession for several years, Bouchard said when the board of directors appointed Miller.
“We have carefully assessed the process and possible candidates,” he said at the time. “It is important to us that our next CEO comes from within the business and fully embraces our values, culture and growth-oriented mindset. For those reasons, we have the utmost confidence that Alex is the best person to be our next president and CEO.”
Miller had been serving as chief operating officer since early 2023, working closely with Hannasch and the board on transitioning to CEO, Bouchard said. He joined Couche-Tard in 2012 as executive vice president of North America operations and global commercial optimization.
Including his nearly 13 years at Couche-Tard, Miller has more than 25 years of management experience in the retail fuel and c-store industry.
Prior to joining Couche-Tard, he was with bp for 16 years in a variety of operational, supply, business development and strategy roles in the United States and Europe.
Miller “has proven himself to be an outstanding leader of the operational, financial and people aspects of the business,” said Bouchard.
“This is about continuing Alain and Brian's legacy, the playbooks and our culture that have served us extremely successfully over the past 40 years,” Miller said. “They selected me. They wanted someone internal that they both believed would protect our culture and drive the playbooks that we have been very successful with. And that's exactly what I intend to do.”
Transparency, Honesty and Humility
“Surround yourself with people that you believe are smarter than you that bring different strengths to the table,” Miller said in describing his management style. “I don't want to make all the decisions. Part of our culture is pushing down decision-making to the local level, promoting entrepreneurship and ownership of the business and the decisions.”
He said one of the most frequent pieces of feedback he gets from his teams is that they like transparency and honesty.
“They know when I tell them things that I have honest discussions with them,” Miller said. “They know what I’m thinking, how I’m thinking. And humility is at the core of our culture. So, getting out with our teams, I’m no better than anyone else out in our stores.”
During the last few years, Miller is most proud of the investments they have made in people.
One big focus has been reducing administrative and bureaucratic tasks to free up store-level employees to allow frontline employees to be able to focus on the customer, making their jobs easier.
“We’ve cut our administrative hours by more than half,” said Miller. “We still have more to do, but in the world we live in, with the technology solutions that are available, that's a journey we will continue. Our retention continues to improve, and we’re a better employer. I’ve only been here 13 years, but I know we’re a better employer today than at any point in my time here.”
No Shift in Strategy
As the new CEO, Miller does not plan on ushering in any major shift in strategy. He has been a big part of Couche-Tard’s “10 for the Win,” a five-year plan that includes the “strategic lighthouses” of Winning Offer, Winning Fuel, Winning the Customer and Winning Growth, supported by the Foundation, which includes Fit to Serve, a doubling down on cost efficiency. Couche-Tard aims to achieve $10 billion in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) by full-year 2028.
But mergers and acquisitions are at the core of Couche-Tard’s culture, Miller said. That will not change either. The company recently announced that it will acquire the 270-unit GetGo Café + Market c-store chain from grocer Giant Eagle, Pittsburgh. It also announced an agreement to acquire 20 Hutch’s c-stores from Elk City, Oklahoma-based Hutchinson Oil Co.
And Couche-Tard is in the midst potentially of one of the biggest c-store-industry M&A deals of all time. In August, it submitted a $39 billion acquisition proposal to Seven & i, the Tokyo-based parent of Irving, Texas-based 7-Eleven Inc. The Seven & i board rejected the proposal, saying the bid “undervalues” the company. Couche-Tard has since raised its offer to $47.2 billion. Meanwhile, Seven & i also is considering a nearly $60 billion management buyout to prevent the foreign takeover.
Although it will build more than 100 sites from the ground up this year, more than 70% of the company’s growth is from M&A, Miller said.
“If you work inside Couche-Tard, you understand that playbook deeply of how we approach M&A, how we look at value, how we look at the financials sitting behind that, how we integrate, how we realize synergy. …. We’ve got to have the right value to return to our shareholders,” he said. “That playbook I'd like to feel is well ingrained in me. It’s one of the things I’ve learned from Brian and Alain. They’re both still there with me every day on M&A, and we will continue to deploy the playbook that has served so well for us over the past four decades.”
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