Senior Director, Real Estate Development

7-Eleven; Irving (TX); On-site; USD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive benefits package

Opportunities for professional development

Job summary

7-Eleven is seeking a Sr. Director of Real Estate Development to lead enterprise growth across the U.S. and Canada. This executive will be responsible for managing 300 annual deals, overseeing site selections, and executing the company's real estate strategy.

The ideal candidate will have over 15 years of experience in real estate leadership, exceptional negotiation skills, and a strong knowledge of capital markets. This role involves collaboration with multiple departments to ensure efficient and effective development processes.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of real estate leadership experience in retail or similar industries.
• Experience structuring complex real estate transactions.
• Proven executive leadership capability with a track record of developing teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead the enterprise growth platform across the U.S. and Canada.
• Build and lead a high-performing real estate organization.
• Oversee deal structuring and negotiations for new stores and relocations.

Skills

Capital markets knowledge

Advanced sale-leaseback expertise

Development framework design

Portfolio optimization mindset

Strong knowledge of legal and approval processes

Education

Bachelor's degree in business, finance, or related discipline

Advanced degree (preferred)

Job description

7-Eleven is an iconic family of brands with over 86,000 locations, surpassing every retailer in the world. We revolutionize convenience, restaurants and fuel through cutting edge innovation — working hard to be the customer's first choice. 7-Eleven empowers our employees to "activate awesome" and make a meaningful impact in their stores and communities every day. If you're ready to grow, lead and make a difference, come join our team and help shape the future of convenience.

Job Summary

The Sr. Director, Real Estate Development (U.S. & Canada) leads the enterprise growth platform for 7-Eleven across the United States and Canada, with accountability for originating, structuring, negotiating, and delivering approximately 300 signed deals per year across new-store development, relocations, redevelopment, and select strategic optimization initiatives. This executive role owns real estate strategy, market planning, and execution across the full development life cycle, ensuring the company secures high-quality sites, deploys capital effectively, and converts opportunities into profitable, scalable growth.

Position Scope

• Owns the end-to-end real estate growth platform for the U.S. and Canada, including market strategy, pipeline creation, site selection, deal structuring, lease and purchase negotiations, approvals, and execution readiness.
• Leads an organization responsible for approximately 300 annual deal signings across new stores, relocations, redevelopment, and other strategic growth initiatives.
• Directly leads senior regional/field real estate leaders and indirectly oversees Real Estate Managers, specialists, and key external development partners.

Key Duties And Responsibilities

• Set and execute the enterprise real estate growth strategy for the U.S. and Canada, translating corporate growth ambitions into actionable market plans, annual targets, and pipeline priorities.
• Build, lead, and continuously strengthen a best-in-class real estate organization capable of sourcing, underwriting, negotiating, and delivering complex transactions in diverse market and economic conditions.
• Work collaboratively with Network Planning to establish market prioritization, white-space planning, and development frameworks that guide where, when, and how 7‑Eleven grows across formats, channels, and strategic adjacency opportunities.
• Create and maintain a high-quality development pipeline that meets company growth objectives not only in volume, but also in expected returns, site quality, brand fit, operational feasibility, and long-term strategic value.
• Lead sophisticated transaction structuring across fee-simple acquisitions, ground leases, build-to-suit arrangements, developer-led structures, portfolio transactions, and sale-leaseback methodologies to optimize capital deployment and balance-sheet outcomes.
• Partner with Treasury and Finance to evaluate capital markets alternatives, cost of capital implications, monetization strategies, tenant inducements, and other financing structures that enhance returns and improve capital efficiency.
• Oversee complex lease, purchase and development contract negotiations, ensuring strong economics, appropriate risk allocation, flexibility for future optimization, and adherence to company standards.
• Drive national program negotiations with developers, brokers, landlords, and other strategic counterparties to improve speed, economics, scalability, and consistency of execution.
• Own executive-level visibility into the full growth pipeline, including forecasting, reporting, investment requirements, capital and operating cost impacts, risks, constraints, and mitigation plans.
• Partner closely with Construction, Entitlements, Engineering & Design, Development Services, and Operations to ensure the end-to-end development process is cost-effective, repeatable, efficient, and scalable from site identification through store opening and post-opening review.
• Champion rigorous financial modeling, scenario analysis, and investment decision-making to prioritize opportunities, improve returns, and support disciplined portfolio growth.
• Lead post-investment reviews and feedback loops to refine site selection criteria, deal structures, development assumptions, and operating performance expectations.
• Collaborate with cross-functional leadership to integrate Fuels, Fleet, Car Wash, Restaurants, EV charging, and other strategic programs into the real estate growth agenda in ways that maximize customer value and site productivity.
• Manage and influence external brokers, developers, legal counsel, consultants, contractors, and other third-party partners, while holding them accountable for quality, cycle time, economics, and execution standards.
• Identify and implement process, governance, and systems improvements that increase transparency, accelerate approvals, reduce cycle times, and enhance decision quality across the real estate development platform.
• Ensure compliance with internal controls, approval authority matrices, legal requirements, and company policies across all transactions and development activities.

Specific Knowledge And Skills

• Capital markets knowledge, including understanding of cost of capital, financing alternatives, disposition and monetization strategies, and real‑estate structures that support enterprise growth.
• Advanced sale-leaseback expertise, including structuring considerations, valuation impacts, landlord/developer negotiations, and integration into broader capital allocation strategy.
• Development framework design, including market clustering, format strategy, return thresholds, trade‑area planning, and prioritization criteria for scalable growth.
• National program negotiation capability across enterprise suppliers, developers, landlords, and strategic operating partners to secure favorable economics and repeatable execution models.
• Strong portfolio optimization mindset, balancing greenfield growth, relocations, remodels, redevelopment, dispositions, and capital redeployment.
• Deep command of underwriting, pro forma analysis, deal economics, lease language, site viability, entitlement risk, construction cost impacts, and timeline management.
• 15+ years of progressive real estate leadership experience, including significant responsibility for multi-market or national development programs in retail, convenience, restaurant, fuel, or similarly complex location-based industries.
• Demonstrated success leading large-scale growth platforms with enterprise-level accountability for site pipeline, transaction execution, and cross-functional delivery.
• Experience structuring complex real estate transactions, including sale-leasebacks, build-to-suits, ground leases, acquisitions, portfolio deals, and developer-led projects.
• Strong knowledge of capital markets, real estate finance, lease negotiation, market planning, and portfolio strategy.
• Proven executive leadership capability with a track record of developing high-performing teams, influencing senior stakeholders, and driving accountability across functions and external partners.
• Exceptional negotiation, analytical, communication, and strategic problem-solving skills.
• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree in business, finance, real estate, law, or related discipline preferred.

If an hourly or salary range is included in this ad it represents the range 7‑Eleven in good faith believes is the range of compensation for this role at the time of this posting. The Company may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range is only applicable for jobs to be performed in this state. This range may be modified in the future. No amount is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable under the terms and conditions of the applicable policies and plans. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission, long-term incentive compensation, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company’s sole discretion unless and until paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole discretion, consistent with the law.

For a general description of all benefits 7‑Eleven is offering in the US for the position, please visit this link.

For a general description of all benefits 7‑Eleven is offering in Canada for the position, please visit this link.