TUCSON, Ariz. — As technology executives have a greater voice in the retail conversation, it is increasingly more important that the leaders in the tech space work together with the leaders in other areas of the operation.
The collaboration between the chief information officer (CIO) and the chief marketing officer (CMO), specifically, took center stage at the 2025 Conexxus Annual Conference in Tucson at the end of January.
Art Sebastian, founder and CEO of NexChapter, pointed out that the convenience channel has undergone a massive digital transformation in the last several years — and he had a front row seat. Before founding the advisory firm Sebastian most recently served as vice president of omnichannel marketing at Casey’s General Stores Inc. During his tenure, he helped the company expand into a multichannel organization with a broad digital presence.
While he acknowledged that transformation is a word the industry has said a lot at conferences, it will continue — but it will change. “It’s not going to be about the loyalty program, and e-commerce and delivery. No doubt those are going to be top of mind, but we’re going to expand the discussion around technology to include these big words: automation, mobile-first platforms and cybersecurity,” he said during the panel, “Driving Success: The Power of CMO & CIO Collaboration.”
Looking at the roles of the CMO and CIO, Sebastian noted some differences:
“We need to begin to merge these skills,” he explained. “These new technologies will require marketing and technology to work closely together. The roles are beginning to converge and right now we need to get tighter aligned.”
But how does an organization get there? A shared vision, trust, communication, and shared goals, Sebastian added.
According to Ryan Blumenthal, director of marketing technology and digital guest experience at RaceTrac Inc., the role of marketing has evolved over the years as the importance of personalization grew.
“Our guests today expect a personal experience from the brands that they love and we are focused on that personalization,” he said. “It is something we learned a lot about in the past year.”
Driving that personalization, explained Tyler Grubbs, executive director of digital and store technology at RaceTrac, is data. “It’s not just who they are, but the trip occasion. Where are they along the journey? Ultimately, how do we gather more data, action it and enrich it? Without that foundation you will be casting wide nets,” he pointed out.
An example of the growing relations between technology and marketing is the recent rollout of RaceTrac’s next-generation mobile app.
In May 2024, the Atlanta-based convenience retailer unveiled an upgraded mobile app experience for its loyal customers. The redesigned RaceTrac Rewards app enhances the chain’s “Whatever Gets You Going” brand of convenience through improved functionality and new features, the company stated at the time.
As Blumenthal noted, RaceTrac knew there were problems with its mobile app, namely, stability issues and slowness, and people did not know how to use it. When developing the next-gen app, the retailer focused on personalization, better accessibility, a simplified loyalty experience and awareness around finding the nearest store with desired features and amenities.
Judging from the positive response from customers, Grubbs called the project “a testament to the vision and the strategic priorities of the organization” layered with the marketing team’s input on what features were important and what experiences they wanted to bring across that app.
“And then ultimately, the collaboration to turn those strategies into features into actual deliverables from a code perspective was amazing to see,” he said, adding the project had buy-in from the overall organization.
The 2025 Conexxus Annual Conference took place Jan. 26-30 at Loews Ventana Canyon in Tucson.
Melissa Kress is Executive Editor of Convenience Store News. She joined the brand in 2010. Melissa handles much of CSNews’ hard news coverage, such as mergers and acquisitions and company financial reports, and the technology beat. She is also one of the industry’s leading media experts on the tobacco category.
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