7-Eleven has appointed the ex-CEO of The Warehouse Group in New Zealand as a non-executive director.

Mark Powell has joined the board with several decades of executive experience across the retail, wholesale and logistics sectors.

7-Eleven chairman Michael Smith, who has been on the board since 1999, said “Mark’s appointment adds to the diversity of experience, knowledge and expertise of the 7-Eleven board as the company pursues its growth and innovation strategy.

“There’s great alignment between Mark’s involvement in retail food, food service, convenience and consumer goods and 7-Eleven’s plans to continue to be at the forefront of convenience in Australia.”

Powell had held board positions with JB Hi-Fi, Bapcor and the Kiwi Property Group.

Commenting on his 7-Eleven board appointment he said “The customer first approach and the company’s commitment to innovation are guiding principles that resonate with me and what I believe are essential to success.

“Everything I do as a member of the board will be focussed on supporting the business to achieve the company’s growth aspirations.”

Recently the convenience chain restructured its organisation and introduced agile methodologies, creating cross-disciplinary groups which will deliver benefits for customers, help the growth of the business, and provide accelerated career development and learning opportunities for employees.

“As our network grew, and we started to play more heavily in spaces such as digital and food, and push the boundaries in formats, we found that we couldn’t test, iterate and roll out as many new innovations as we wanted to,” said CEO and managing director Angus McKay.

Powell replaces Bob Baily who recently retired from the board after almost 20 years as a non-executive director.

This is published on our sister’s publication Inside Franchise Business Executive.