Parkland USA will not name a new COO in the aftermath of Jay Erickson’s passing

Dive Brief:

Parkland USA does not plan to hire a new chief operating officer in the aftermath of former COO Jay Erickon’s death, a company spokesperson confirmed.
Erickson, who became Parkland USA’s COO in May 2021, passed away on March 2 after a brief illness. Since then, the retailer has not named a new COO, and Parkland’s spokesperson said last week it does not plan to seek one moving forward.
Despite not having a COO, Parkland’s spokesperson said the company is confident in its new management structure, which was put into place just a few months before Erickson’s passing.

Dive Insight:

Parkland’s revised leadership strategy stems from the moves it made last December, which included appointing Donna Sanker as president of Parkland USA and Ian White as president of Parkland Canada. Both moves happened one week after longtime leader Doug Haugh stepped down as president of Parkland USA.

In the months that followed Sanker’s promotion, Parkland shuffled its U.S. leadership team to include new team members to lead its commercial and retail businesses — its “core links,” the spokesperson said. This gave the company a “smaller structure” and a “far more simplified” organizational setup, they noted.

“We've kind of recalibrated, we've gotten more efficient and we've structured the best system in a way that's consistent with our business links,” the spokesperson said.

Under Sanker’s leadership, Parkland feels it has “harmonized” its structure in the U.S., and doesn’t feel the need to seek out a new COO.

“Once we installed Donna as a leader, she got her feet under the table and she made the adjustments for that senior team that she felt were required to better sync with the business that we are and get really efficient,” the spokesperson said. “We feel good with the organization we've got in place.”

With 1,860 stores in its Canadian network, Calgary, Alberta-based Parkland is the largest independent fuel retailer and second-largest c-store operator in Canada. In the U.S., Parkland supplies fuel to independently owned gas stations and operates 212 c-stores under a variety of banners, including On the Run, Hart’s, Superpumper and KB Express.