Meet Future Leader in Convenience: Brett Silva

SAN RAMON, Calif. — Born and raised in the Bay Area of California, Brett Silva started his career in merchandising by working in a home improvement store while pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business administration. After graduation, he accepted a corporate position at Safeway Inc., and held multiple positions of increasing responsibility in category management.

After a few years, Silva left Safeway to join Chevron Corp.’s merchandising team, which is now ExtraMile Convenience Stores LLC, based in San Ramon, Calif., operator of more than 850 stores in California, Oregon and Washington. He attended night school to achieve his MBA from St. Mary’s College in Moraga, Calif., and was then promoted to his current role of category manager of the center of the store categories.

Silva is responsible for nine categories, which include snacks, candy, general
merchandise, automotive, health and beauty, frozen grocery, and more. He is tasked with
driving profitable sales for the franchise network in each category by optimizing the item
assortment and space allocation. He also works to identify merchandising solutions,
negotiate pricing and promotions, and capitalize on market trends.

Since taking on the role, Silva had an immediate impact on growth, increasing same-store
sales every year for the last three years. These increases have outpaced the competitive
market performance. He’s been able to achieve this by implementing new programs and
identifying the right supplier partners.

Silva also played an instrumental role in developing ExtraMile’s private label brand,
EXTRAGOOD. He launched the private label candy bars, beef jerky and doughnuts, all of
which have been very successful. In fact, the three categories these new items fall into all
outperformed the competitive market growth by double digits through May 2019. 

“This launch has been impactful due to Brett’s negotiations with the manufacturers, pricing and promotional decisions, and communication to the network,” said Brian Mulcahy, merchandising manager. “These programs are a great value for customers with the sizes and retails, as well as a great value for the franchisees’ penny profit compared to the national brands.”