Tom Newbould has incredible knowledge of the ever-changing landscape of the retail markets and has worn many hats throughout his 30 plus year career. A true expert in the c-stores, travel centers, and truck stop industry, Tom’s expertise encompasses strategic planning, marketing, product management, brand management, cost reduction strategies, contract negotiation and operational excellence.
As a high impact, enterprising, focused leader, Tom applies his natural ability to build new business and forge loyalty with customers, vendors, and business partners to client engagements. He demonstrates proven success in establishing a lasting presence in new markets, developing successful sales strategy, channel marketing, and distribution, identifying growth opportunities, and initiating strong business alliances to propel an organization to the top tier of its industry. Tom serves as an operations, marketing, and merchandising strategist, offering thought leadership and insights for market differentiation, competitive advantage, and Go to Market strategies using best-in-class tools and processes. He possesses a motivational management style with a history of building, guiding, and retaining high-performance teams to develop and implement strategies for accelerated growth.
Starting as an intern, Tom spent 15 years at BP Oil in various positions and 17 years at TravelCenters of America (TA) most recently as Senior Vice President of Retail Marketing, Warehousing and Retail Services. He led the TA acquisition and divesture of the MinitMart sites – which involved 14 different acquisitions, and one large divestment. During his career, he has lead projects on acquisitions and divestures, IT implementation, Store Design and Layout, Developing New Sales concepts, implementing JDA Software and developing processes to fully utilize and integrate the software. His track record as a Marketing and Operations leader, building solid teams is very impressive, seven years of like site growth greater than the industry average and reducing inventory year over year are just some of the accomplishments. Tom also is very contract savvy negotiating some of the largest contracts for TravelCenters of America, including the grocery wholesaler and 78 store gasoline branding contract.
Tom’s professional mission, inspired by the words of Albert Einstein, “Try not to become a man of success. Rather, become a man of value,” shines through in his many accomplishments. Tom led his team at TA to outpace the industry in top-line sales growth and operating ratios for seven straight years. Tom developed and led a newly formed Loss Prevention team that resulted in significant expense reduction. Within a two-year period, the team was able to make TA best in class in terms of overall inventory and cash losses. He also created and led a more streamlined store operating structure that led to year-over-year EBITDA improvement for three years in a row. Tom was responsible for the business implementation of number of significant IT changes, including SAP back office, POS systems for gasoline and commercial diesel, space planning, SAP CAR/HANA, and SAP warehouse. Some of the largest TA contracts were negotiated by Tom including the grocery wholesaler and 78 site branded fuel sites.
A lifelong Clevelander, Tom earned his BA Business/Accounting and MBA from Baldwin-Wallace University. He is a voice in the industry as an Advisor Board member of the Convenience Retailing University for many years, and a presenter and facilitator at various NACs and NATSO events. Tom dedicates his talents in his community, serving on the board of his HOA for nearly 20 years and working with Junior Achievement as a business training volunteer. Tom loves spending time with his wife Bonnie of 33 years, his three children, two grandchildren, and two dogs. He very much enjoys the outdoors, biking, golfing, swimming in the summer and skiing in the winter.
