CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas -- When Alvin New chose not to join Susser Holdings Corp. after it bought New's Town & County Food Stores operation in the fall of 2007, he took with him not only a handsome check, but also a background in retail that would be hard to replace. Five months later, Susser Holdings has found retail chief in the form of formerquick-service restaurant (QSR)leader Steven DeSutter, as reported in a CSP Daily News Flash yesterday.
DeSutter will serve as executive vice president of the corporation and president and CEO of Stripes, Susser's more than 500-site c-store chain [image-nocss] in Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma, including the 168 stores formerly under Alvin New's leadership at Town & Country, San Angelo, Texas.
New, one of four partners who sold to Corpus Christi, Texas-based Susser Holdings, was integral in Town& Country's growth and success, and he would have been key to the integration of the chain and its people to Susser Holding's 339-store Stripes collection. New chose, however, not to relocate his family for the sake of the business opportunity.
When Susser Holdings CEO Sam L. Susser was asked in January about the qualifications for New's replacement, he said, partly tongue-in-cheek, "Heavy convenience-store background and fuel background and foodservice background, and be bilingual and very experienced in integrating acquired business in a very high-growth environment, with heavy real-estate and construction background. We've not met him or her yet. I'm not sure he or she exists."
DeSutter fills many of those requirements, however. Most recently, he was an advisor and served as interim executive vice president of operations for Quiznos, the multinational sandwich franchise with approximately 5,000 restaurants.
DeSutter will guide a c-store division that is slated to build 12 to 18 sites in 2008, according to a June 3 presentation to potential investors. Integration continues, while rebranding the Town& Country stores to Stripes will begin in the fourth quarter, and new Laredo Taco Co. menu items will be tested. His foodservice background is vital to a company that has proprietary foodservice in 68% of its stores and, before the purchase of Town & Country, boasted 16% of its gross profit from foodservice in 2007.
Previously, DeSutter was executive vice president of Burger King Corp. and president of Burger King for Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, with approximately 2,200 company and franchise stores and annual sales of over $2 billion. DeSutter has more than 30 years' experience in various executive management, marketing and finance roles.
Prior to his work in the quick-service-restaurant business, he played a strategic consulting role in various transactional and corporate workout projects in the airline, banking and management consulting industries. He began his career at BP, where he worked in a variety of different operations, marketing and finance roles during his 18 years at the company.
"He has a lot of great experience managing big brands at large, multi-unit companies in the quick-service-restaurant industry, which is a big part of our business," Susser said. "At Burger King, he managed the integration of hundreds of restaurants operating in over 35 countries under a single brand standard and common operating system. By bringing these disciplines to the BK brand, he and his team dramatically enhanced the customer experience, improved operations quality and set a record for new-store openings. At the same time they increased revenues, reduced overhead and nearly doubled EBITDA."He added, "At Quiznos, he led the management team in developing and implementing a guest-focused operating system to enable franchise store owners to improve customer service. He also helped pioneer a new catering and delivery service that naturally extends the store beyond the traditional four walls and is expected to significantly increase sales over the next few years."Click hereto view CSP magazine's March cover story on Susser.
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