“Hey, Chrissy, do you want to write the December feature on Henry?”

As someone who has worked with him the past 20 years at NACS, of course I do. But where do I start? Celebrating the legacy and career of someone who means so much to so many people is no easy feat. At least not in 2,000 words. 

There’s a strong possibility I will want to rewrite this article a million times after it goes to print. That’s because Henry is so much more to us at NACS than just our president and CEO. 

His habit of popping into our offices to ask a question or bounce around ideas kept us grounded in our mission but gave us permission to stretch.

In times of crisis, we looked to Henry for guidance. He was easy to find. His door was always open. 

Some say the best leaders lead from the front. That may be true, but I believe Henry is in his element when he’s next to us, arm in arm.  

“You know a leader is invested in his colleagues when they speak about joint accomplishments and cannot do so without getting emotional,” said Brian Kimmell, CFO at NACS, who has also been with the association for Henry’s entire tenure. “We don’t often use the word ‘love’ in work settings, but it is clear how much Henry loves his wife and family, and the industry he’s been in for most of his career—and the individuals who make up the staff that he led and worked with every day. His love is evident.”

No idea was too small. Henry listened. Actively. He asked questions to understand different perspectives. He participated: bowling, mini golf, store tours, whirly ball, Nationals baseball games, picnics, wine tastings, skeet shooting, pizza making, chili cookoffs, dressing up as a chicken for Halloween, leading the toast at our year-end holiday party and pumping us up at 6:45 a.m. staff meetings during the NACS Show. 

He showed up, always. 

There is a laundry list of qualities that every great leader possesses, whether learned or naturally gifted with. I believe there are leadership skills Henry excels at with ease, and others he humbly worked on over the years. 

Truth is, I have no idea if Henry has always been the person and leader who we’ve come to know at NACS. But what I can say, honestly and emphatically, is that his legacy and what he’s taught us will remain long after he’s decided to make olive oil and wine for the rest of his days with his wife Natalie in Spain. 

He’s not retiring just yet—Henry will continue on with NACS in a different capacity. He will be leading our international strategy and growth, which you’ll read more about throughout this piece. 

Physically, he won’t be in the office at 1600 Duke Street. But make no mistake, he will always be with us.  

I hope Henry feels he can hang his hat on several areas that, thanks to his vision and passion for this industry, will continue defining NACS and convenience retail for many years to come. 

First, the growth of our global engagement. Second, the transformation of the NACS culture. And third, the creation of programs that cultivate future leaders so they can take this industry to the next level. 

Global Lessons

NACS did not begin its journey, back in August 1964, with an international focus. The United States was more concerned with the containment of communism than the expansion of global business relationships. 

By the mid-1980s, that changed. NACS began building connections with the international convenience retail community with the first NACS European Study Tour, which took attendees to London and Amsterdam, followed by similar tours in Tokyo, Ireland, France, Scotland, Budapest, Italy, Argentina, Greece and Prague. The goal was to learn best practices and develop relationships. 

Over time, the original intent of these outreach tours began to stray, and NACS was not moving the needle on growing its international retail membership and engagement with events like the NACS Show. 

As he began immersing himself in his soon-to-be new role as NACS president and CEO, Henry went on the road. He held 134 meetings with retailers, suppliers, state association executives and trade press as part of a listening tour prior to officially taking over as the leader of NACS on July 7, 2005. 

A question he often asked during those meetings was whether there was something NACS should be doing more of. Some of the larger, more progressive companies wanted to see NACS not just host international events, but really expand its ability to share new ideas and trends that were transpiring in other countries. 

The leaders of these companies “suggested creating a type of global radar to identify not just new products but new processes, new business models and new ways to think about convenience around the world,” said Henry. 

He listened to their ideas, asked questions and embarked on a new listening tour to visit convenience retailers around the world. 

“I asked, ‘What are the top three issues you’re facing that are the most important?’ and I was flabbergasted. They were the exact same issues all around the world—labor, regulation, energy—but they were in radically different positions within their life cycle curve.” 

For example, European retailers were more forward-focused on environmentally friendly business practices. Convenience store formats in Ireland and Canada were more attuned to operating in a competitive marketplace where channel blurring was the norm and government intervention was common. Technology and digital payments in Asia were light-years ahead of the United States, and dark tobacco retailing in Australia served as an example of what could happen in other countries. 

Henry often quotes William Gibson, a Canadian futurist who said that “The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed.” It’s a quote that he says has proved to be “hugely valuable because NACS is a global organization and our noble cause is to better the industry.”

This globally focused mindset led to the creation of the NACS Global Government Affairs Council, which Henry created to bring together convenience retail association leaders from around the world to share advocacy-related issues. The group meets virtually throughout the year and in person at the NACS Show. 

“When we passed debit card reform in the U.S., most of the early data came out of Australia, because they had already done it,” said Henry, noting that this is one example of how bringing industry leaders together to navigate regulatory challenges can have a massive impact. Debit card reform in the U.S., which NACS was instrumental in passing and is known as the Durbin Amendment, has saved the convenience industry an estimated $13 billion since 2011. 

Another success story of global engagement is the NACS In Store program, which is based on a program from Canada. During a Global Government Affairs Council meeting, Alex Scholten, the former president of the Canadian Convenience Stores Association, shared how Canadian retailers invited local politicians into their stores to work 15-minute shifts behind the register to serve customers and raise money for charity. 

Today, the NACS In Store program brings members of Congress into convenience stores to gain firsthand knowledge of how their local c-store operates by meeting with store teams and getting behind the register to engage with customers. 

Gibson’s quote has ultimately served as the “the driving force of our NACS global engagement” over the past two decades, said Henry. 

“Look around the world. If you’re interested in better-for-you foodservice and convenience, look at Western Europe and Denmark in particular. If you want to look at payment systems today, I think India is about to pass China because its national currency is being digitized. If you want to look at natural gas as a transportation fuel, look at Argentina, where 60% of the vehicles are powered by natural gas. If you want to look at EVs, it’s Norway and China,” Henry said. 

Focusing on Culture

Henry corrected me when I said NACS didn’t have a culture 20 years ago. He said there was a culture, but not one that we could be proud of. There were silos, and communication across departments was subpar. More to the point, no one thought about culture. When NACS hired me a few months before Henry took the reins, not one person even said the word “culture” during the interview process. 

NACS could serve as a brilliant case study for how an organization’s culture—with the right leader steering the ship—can take a 180. The culture at NACS grew into its driving force. It focuses on constructive behaviors and relishes diverse perspectives. And it goes much deeper than being nice, said Henry: “That’s not what culture is. Culture is about constructive engagement. It’s about respecting and relishing diverse perspectives so that you can see all facets of the diamond before you make decisions. It’s not squishy—it’s measurable.”

Culture “is a never-ending journey … and the moment we take our foot off the gas, the moment that we think we’re in good shape with culture is the moment that things will start to go south,” he said. 

To hear diverse perspectives, Henry began hosting two-hour “quints,” which are meetings with five NACS staff from different departments. During the quints, which are confidential, staff shares their thoughts and ideas on how to make NACS a better place. Henry asks questions that take the pulse of how the culture is progressing—or regressing—and also probes for possible ways to build greater efficiencies and operational excellence.

Each year for the past decade, Henry has dedicated two weeks to hosting around 15 quints with staff. He then shares a detailed debrief with the entire organization, summarizing big picture findings from what he heard and what will change at NACS based on staff feedback. 

“I’ll put a green spotlight to say that was a brilliant idea. We’re going to do that. A yellow means it’s interesting, but I need to investigate that more. And red means I heard you, and it’s really important to share that I heard, but we’re not going to move on that,” he explained.

Building an Education Network

A February 11, 2002, press release read: “Growing the Convenience Store Industry’s Next CEOs … NACS Launches Industry-Specific Executive Development Program.” 

At the time Henry was serving as the 2001-2002 NACS chairman, and Howard Stoeckel, then-executive vice president of Wawa Inc., was the chairman of the NACS Leadership Committee. During a committee meeting, Stoeckel raised the idea that the industry would benefit from better leadership education. 

That idea spurred the development of the NACS Executive Program at Cornell University, which provides next-generation executives in the c-store industry with the knowledge, tools and inspiration to lead their companies. 

In the mid-2000s, Henry’s conversations with industry executives uncovered a need for companies to build a stronger financial acumen. 

Henry collected proposals from globally renowned academic institutions, and in 2013 NACS held its first Financial Leadership Program at the Wharton School of Business, part of the University of Pennsylvania. “We put together a customized curriculum that’s especially relevant to our industry,” he said. 

Next came the Marketing Leadership Program at Kellogg (2015), the Women’s Leadership Program at Yale (2018) and the Innovation Leadership Program at MIT (2019).

“These programs are designed to help our industry not only survive but prosper and grow in a very dynamic world, a very changing world, to equip rising stars with a great foundation in management and in leadership,” said Henry. 

Henry typically attends each of the five programs every year, meaning he’s received his NACS Master of Convenience designation many times over. Why attend each program every year? The answer, he said, is obvious. 

“The world changes. We have to make sure that the programs resonate every year. When we started Kellogg, we had no learnings on digital marketing. Today, 40% to 50% of the curriculum is about digital marketing,” he said. “We have to make sure we’re solving today’s problems and tomorrow’s problems—not just yesterday’s problems.”

This mindset that values higher education formed long before Henry’s convenience industry career. His father believed “that what you learned at a job would be out of date in a few years. And he really believed in the importance of training your brain how to think,” said Henry. Instead of encouraging him to enter the workforce after four years of undergrad, his father encouraged him to pursue his Ph.D., which he earned from Stanford University. 

“My dad was right about the importance of learning critical thinking in analytics, even though there was absolutely no game plan to prepare for a particular job. It was preparing for advancing in a rapidly changing world,” said Henry.