Istvan Kapitany: “It’s a recognition to Shell’s convenience business”

At the NACS Convenience Summit in London, the new European Industry Leader of the Year spoke of the importance of growing the convenience segment and his own personal journey.

Istvan Kapitany, global executive vice president of Royal Dutch Shell, received the 2019 NACS European Industry Leader of the Year award in London last week.

Under his leadership the global company has expanded its service station network and reimagined its food and convenience offering.

“It is a great honour to get this award for two reasons: most importantly it is a recognition of Shell’s convenience retail efforts in the last years; personally, it is a great honour to receive the accolade of industry leader of the year,” said Kapitany to PetrolPlaza shortly after receiving the award.

As the petrol station industry moves forward, setting a bigger focus on food and non-fuel services, the award is a clear recognition to Shell’s efforts across the global retail market.

“Convenience retail is a very important part of our business. We are of course a very strong fuel retailer. We have an ambition to produce 50% of margin contributions by 2025 through non-fuels retailing activities in our company owned operations. We want to be serving an even bigger segment of the customer base, not only those looking for the highest quality of fuels,” added Kapitany.

Shell has already announced plans to open 5,000 more convenience stores by 2025 as part of its investment in non-fuels.

“We already are seeing more than 65% of our customers in Northwest Europe coming to our sites only to make purchases in the shop rather than fuel. This is already happening in markets like the UK and the Netherlands. We are in close to 80 countries, so our challenge is to replicate this all around the world. That is why I am so proud of the Shell team for receiving this award.”

Kapitany began his career with Shell in 1987 as a store manager in Hungary, and held executive positions in Shell’s downstream operations as well as globally with Shell in Germany, Hungary, South Africa and the United States. Since 2014, he has served in his current role.