The number of women in leadership roles in the c-store channel is increasing.
Women lead 6% of the largest chains in the convenience industry—up from 3% in 2023, according to an evaluation of CSP’s 2024 Top 202 list of the top U.S. c-store chains by store count. Women in c-suite roles is up 20% from 12%, while women in vice president roles jumped from 15% to 24%.
Leading NOW President Julia Lazzara shared these stats during her Nov. 4 presentation at CSP’s C-Store Women (CSW) event in Charleston, South Carolina. Leading NOW is CSP’s educational partner for CSW.
In her presentation, Lazzara shared Leading Now statistics that show women account for 10% of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies.
As for the number of women leaders in the c-store industry compared to men, major improvements are taking place within the c-store channel, Lazzara said, but added that more needs to be done.
“We still have a lot of work to do in this industry to get equal representation in senior leadership roles,” she said. “We haven’t solved it yet, but we are moving in the right direction and there is a ton of potential.”
Lazzara touched upon The Missing 33%, a primary characteristic of business, strategic and financial acumen that keeps women from rising beyond middle management.
She shared a three-part definition of leadership which includes the following qualities:
- Use the greatness in you
- Engage the greatness in others
- Achieve and sustain extraordinary outcomes
For the first quality, Lazzara said leadership is made up of various traits, including resilience, humility and risk taking. The second quality she said starts with the ability to empower and motivate people. “This is about communication skills and executive presence,” she said.
Of these three characteristics of leadership, Lazzara said the least perceived areas of strength for women falls in the achieve and sustain extraordinary outcomes quality.
Lazzara described the definition of business and financial acumen for the audience and said leaders who have business, financial and strategic acumen are those leaders who are change makers, results driven and transformational leaders and innovators.
During her presentation, Lazzara also identified nine differentiators for moving from middle-level into senior and executive positions.
They include:
- Executive presence
- Hold line, international and strategic jobs
- Align teams to business strategy
- Executive, board and media communication skills
- Mentoring that earns sponsorship
- External strategic relationships
- Proven business acumen
- Strategic acumen and track record
- Actions based on financial acumen
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