RaceTrac trying to rent first CIO as prime tech exec retires

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Dive Temporary:

• RaceTrac’s VP of IT John Lukas will retire on the finish of 2025, an organization spokesperson confirmed to C-Retailer Dive.
• RaceTrac is trying to rent its first-ever CIO within the wake of Lukas’ retirement, the corporate stated in a press release. To assist that place, the comfort retailer not too long ago promoted firm veteran Tyler Grubbs to VP of retail and digital applied sciences.
• Lukas’ retirement and RaceTrac’s creation of its CIO function comes amid the company’s ongoing tech transformation. Few comfort retailer retailers have constructed up their tech capabilities over the previous few years as actively as RaceTrac, which continues to spend money on new applications and companies for its shops.

Dive Perception:

Lukas joined RaceTrac in 2020 and has been instrumental in a number of initiatives that “formed the long run” of the enterprise, in keeping with the announcement. These have included remodeling RaceTrac’s retailer know-how infrastructure, revamping its loyalty app and back-end advertising and marketing techniques, and spearheading the IT integration of RaceTrac’s 2023 acquisition of Gulf Oil.

Previous to becoming a member of RaceTrac, Lukas spent over twenty years in senior technology roles throughout the restaurant and hospitality industries with firms resembling Wendy’s, Arby’s and Popeyes, in keeping with his LinkedIn bio.

“I’m really humbled by the chance to help RaceTrac with our know-how transformation and most significantly working facet by facet with one of the best individuals in our trade,” Lukas stated in a press release to C-Retailer Dive. “I am assured that the transition can be easy and our new IT management will convey new contemporary experiences to RaceTrac that can assist our rising wants.”

RaceTrac is working with government search agency CIO Partners on the hunt for its first CIO, in keeping with a LinkedIn announcement from the agency. Neither RaceTrac nor CIO Companions supplied many particulars on the function — solely that whoever takes on the function will “information the corporate into its subsequent period of innovation, targeted on enterprise-wide know-how imaginative and prescient, cybersecurity, information technique and AI adoption,” in keeping with RaceTrac’s assertion.

In the meantime, Grubbs has held numerous roles with RaceTrac over the previous 15 years. In addition to know-how roles, he’s additionally labored in RaceTrac’s foodservice, enterprise analytics and particular tasks divisions, in keeping with his LinkedIn bio. Grubbs will report back to the brand new CIO as soon as that particular person is employed, RaceTrac stated.