Seven & i Shareholders Officially Approve First Foreign CEO
TOKYO — Seven & i Holdings Co. Ltd. shareholders officially approved Stephen Hayes Dacus as the company's first foreign CEO during its May 27 annual shareholders' meeting. He succeeds Ryuichi Isaka, who will remain a senior advisor to Seven & i.
During the meeting, Dacus promised "efforts in making sure that the next 10 years is better than the last 10 years" as Seven & i, parent company to 7-Eleven Inc., increases its focus on its convenience store business, reported The Mainichi.
Dacus previously served as chairman of the board and lead independent outside director at Seven & i. He joined the board in 2022, bringing his experience as an executive at multiple Japanese companies, and has since played an integral role in overseeing the company's value creation strategy as chairman of the strategy committee and chairman of the special committee, according to Seven & i. Dacus speaks Japanese fluently and spent time as a teenager working at his father's 7-Eleven store in the United States.
"I know how important...the management of this business is to the people who run our business," Dacus said. "I also know how important it is for our stock and our performance to reflect that, so that our shareholders, who are also our customers, can benefit from the company's growth."
Shareholders also approved appointments of 12 other board members, including Junro Ito, son of Seven & i founder Masatoshi Ito and the head of a bid to take the company private through a proposed $58 billion management buyout offer. Ito and his company Ito-Kogyo Co. Ltd. withdrew the offer in February, paving the way for increased exploration of Laval, Quebec-based Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc.'s acquisition offer.
According to Seven & i, the company is committed to pursuing two parallel paths to ensure maximum value for shareholders and other stakeholders: working closely with Couche-Tard to explore the possibility of a viable divestiture path to ensure that any potential agreed-upon sale can be completed; and a standalone plan, for which having well-defined management initiatives and Dacus as CEO will be key to the company's success.
Seven & i subsidiary 7-Eleven Inc. operates, franchises and/or licenses more than 13,000 stores in the United States and Canada. In addition to 7-Eleven stores, it operates and franchises Speedway, Stripes, Laredo Taco Co., and Raise the Roost Chicken and Biscuits locations.
