Senior Director, Real Estate Development

About the role

The Senior Director, Real Estate Development (U.S. & Canada) leads the enterprise growth platform for 7-Eleven across the United States and Canada, with accountability for originating, structuring, negotiating, and delivering approximately 300 signed deals per year across new-store development, relocations, redevelopment, and select strategic optimization initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Set and execute the enterprise real estate growth strategy for the U.S. and Canada, translating corporate growth ambitions into actionable market plans, annual targets, and pipeline priorities.
• Build, lead, and continuously strengthen a best-in-class real estate organization capable of sourcing, underwriting, negotiating, and delivering complex transactions in diverse market and economic conditions.
• Create and maintain a high-quality development pipeline that meets company growth objectives not only in volume, but also in expected returns, site quality, brand fit, operational feasibility, and long-term strategic value.
• Lead sophisticated transaction structuring across fee-simple acquisitions, ground leases, build-to-suit arrangements, developer-led structures, portfolio transactions, and sale-leaseback methodologies to optimize capital deployment and balance-sheet outcomes.
• Partner with Treasury and Finance to evaluate capital markets alternatives, cost of capital implications, monetization strategies, tenant inducements, and other financing structures that enhance returns and improve capital efficiency.
• Oversee complex lease, purchase and development contract negotiations, ensuring strong economics, appropriate risk allocation, flexibility for future optimization, and adherence to company standards.
• Drive national program negotiations with developers, brokers, landlords, and other strategic counterparties to improve speed, economics, scalability, and consistency of execution.
• Own executive-level visibility into the full growth pipeline, including forecasting, reporting, investment requirements, capital and operating cost impacts, risks, constraints, and mitigation plans.
• Partner closely with Construction, Entitlements, Engineering & Design, Development Services, and Operations to ensure the end-to-end development process is cost-effective, repeatable, efficient, and scalable from site identification through store opening and post-opening review.
• Champion rigorous financial modeling, scenario analysis, and investment decision-making to prioritize opportunities, improve returns, and support disciplined portfolio growth.
• Lead post-investment reviews and feedback loops to refine site selection criteria, deal structures, development assumptions, and operating performance expectations.
• Collaborate with cross-functional leadership to integrate Fuels, Fleet, Car Wash, Restaurants, EV charging, and other strategic programs into the real estate growth agenda in ways that maximize customer value and site productivity.
• Manage and influence external brokers, developers, legal counsel, consultants, contractors, and other third-party partners, while holding them accountable for quality, cycle time, economics, and execution standards.
• Identify and implement process, governance, and systems improvements that increase transparency, accelerate approvals, reduce cycle times, and enhance decision quality across the real estate development platform.
• Ensure compliance with internal controls, approval authority matrices, legal requirements, and company policies across all transactions and development activities.

Requirements

• 15+ years of progressive real estate leadership experience, including significant responsibility for multi-market or national development programs in retail, convenience, restaurant, fuel, or similarly complex location-based industries.
• Demonstrated success leading large-scale growth platforms with enterprise-level accountability for site pipeline, transaction execution, and cross-functional delivery.
• Experience structuring complex real estate transactions, including sale-leasebacks, build-to-suits, ground leases, acquisitions, portfolio deals, and developer-led projects.
• Strong knowledge of capital markets, real estate finance, lease negotiation, market planning, and portfolio strategy.
• Proven executive leadership capability with a track record of developing high-performing teams, influencing senior stakeholders, and driving accountability across functions and external partners.
• Exceptional negotiation, analytical, communication, and strategic problem-solving skills.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree in business, finance, real estate, law, or related discipline preferred.

Skills

• Capital markets knowledge, including understanding of cost of capital, financing alternatives, disposition and monetization strategies, and real estate structures that support enterprise growth.
• Advanced sale-leaseback expertise, including structuring considerations, valuation impacts, landlord/developer negotiations, and integration into broader capital allocation strategy.
• Development framework design, including market clustering, format strategy, return thresholds, trade area planning, and prioritization criteria for scalable growth.
• National program negotiation capability across enterprise suppliers, developers, landlords, and strategic operating partners to secure favorable economics and repeatable execution models.
• Deep command of underwriting, pro forma analysis, deal economics, lease language, site viability, entitlement risk, construction cost impacts, and timeline management.

Benefits

Details on specific benefits are available upon request.

Pay

The Company may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range is only applicable for jobs to be performed in this state. This range may be modified in the future.

Schedule

Details on specific schedules are available upon request.