Kayla Hall, vice president of human resources at Refuel Operating Co., was challenged by joining a company that’s grown mostly through acquisitions, she said during a session at CSP’s C-Store Women’s event (CSW) in San Antonio on Monday.
Hall, pictured above right with Abbey Lewis, vice president of content strategy at CSP, joined Refuel three years ago as director of training and engagement. With smaller companies coming together to expand Refuel over the past few years, the existing training programs varied.
“We had people from one acquisition doing one thing and from another acquisition doing something else,” she said.
Hall distributed surveys to get a sense of what the experience was in the different stores.
She received employee feedback: “The training experience was awful,” or “I didn't get this,” she said. She said that being in her role gave her the opportunity to improve that experience. She was passionate about creating processes that would be consistent and effective across all five states—South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi, Texas and Arkansas—and that effort continues to evolve.
- Refuel Operating Co. LLC is No. 38 on CSP’s 2025 Top 202 ranking of U.S. convenience-store chains by store count.
Prior to joining Refuel, Hall worked in an operations and training role at Starbucks. She explained that many small moments eventually pushed her toward a career in HR.
“There's power in doing more than just executing,” she said.
Hall said that while many people excel at execution, her experience at Starbucks helped her realize something deeper.
“We have a lot of people that are really great executors, but what I learned through Starbucks, answering curriculum, is how much I love being able to influence and develop and actually create systems and processes that were going to have a big impact on a lot of people's lives,” she said.
That passion for impact, she said, began with training and building programs at Refuel. As her skills and interests grew, she began to see new doors open.
“So it was like, hey, there's opportunities in training. Let's create a training program. That spiraled into opportunities in our talent acquisition and our compensation strategy, and so it snowballed,” she said.
As a leader, it’s important to remember that mistakes are an opportunity, Hall said, and even that first training program that she rolled out three years ago is full of things that need updated, she said.
“You're probably going to mess things up, you're going to get things wrong,” Hall said.
What matters is the willingness to understand, in her case, that certain aspects of the training program are now irrelevant and being committed to making changes.
Hall has a mentor from her time at Starbucks that emphasized the importance of taking risks and putting yourself out there, she said.
She recalled several pivotal moments in her career when she had to choose whether to take a new job that meant uprooting her family of five. She described the difficulty of deciding to move her three young daughters and husband across the country to a place where they didn’t know anyone. Ultimately, she took that leap, and the experience gave her the confidence to make other major decisions later on—including another cross-country move with her family to South Carolina for her role at Refuel.
The best advice she has ever received is to be confident in making the hard decisions to achieve her goals, she said.
“That's really impacted where I'm at today,” she said.
Hall also places a high value on store employees and takes pride in seeing their dedication recognized.
She finds it especially meaningful during store visits, when she meets team members wearing anniversary pins that mark 10 or 15 years with the company. The same pride shines through in employees who’ve been named team member of the month. Hall described how excited they are to wear their pins. She and her team often celebrate the occasion by asking to take photos with them to share their achievements.
“[I love] seeing that experience in stores and talking to team members who will share that they actually love what they do and love their customers and love being able to show up every day,” she said.
Store employees' jobs are difficult, she said.
“They're often dealing with disgruntled customers, so to be able to—even if it's just little things like pins—get things like that out to hundreds of stores and know that it's having some small impact on their day, is probably one of the biggest [returns].”
Refuel has a history of growth through acquisition. Most recently, it acquired eight Mississippi c-stores. In 2024, Refuel's store count grew by three locations. In 2023, Refuel acquired eight convenience stores through two separate deals. In 2022, Refuel made several acquisitions, including two CEFCO stores from Fikes Wholesale Inc and the assets of Embark Energy.
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