Tanner Krause's 'dream job' was Kum & Go CEO. He no longer holds that post. What's next?
Tanner Krause doesn’t usually write out full speeches.
He’s comfortable off the cuff. Naturally articulate even when using jargon.
And in the case of Kum & Go — the convenience store chain his family owned for more than 60 years — he has both innate passion and deep knowledge. He’s been obsessed with the company since he turned 9 and got a “job” sweeping and restocking at the store near his family’s West Des Moines home. Every professional step he’s taken from then has been with an eye toward the CEO’s office, which he took over in January 2021 at age 33.
But he had paragraphs jotted as he took the podium in the Krause Gateway Center’s airy conference room April 21, the gusty spring Friday when Kum & Go employees found out the company was being acquired by the Utah-based Maverik chain.
“The whole process happened very quickly,” Krause says, so he wanted to have the right words, to be extra clear that Kum & Go was in good hands with a similarly sized, fellow family-owned company that prioritizes store quality and associates’ work-life balance.
He’d had a chance to take the measure of Maverik and its CEO, Chuck Maggelet, during the acquisition process and he wanted his employees to understand that “they’re good, honest, hardworking, intelligent people that care and are very passionate about retail.” Knowing more about the new owners would be a calming force, he thought. It had been for him.
But he also wanted to honor that this wasn’t the ending he would have written for his tenure. That it “was a heavy day” at headquarters and that many associates “didn't expect this outcome.”
“It's been a very emotional process,” he says, sitting in his office in the waning days of his tenure.
“This is coming to an end in a way that's much different than I would have had in mind years or decades ago. It's been something that I've tried to manage with professionalism and respect for the process.”
Krause’s last day at his self-proclaimed dream job was Friday, capping off just under three years as CEO and more than a decade at the company his great-grandfather started with one gas station in a rural Iowa hamlet.
His time at the company has been marked by incredible growth. Kum & Go does not release quarterly reports, but Krause facilitated a build program that saw the company grow from about 10 new stores a year to up to 40, including expansions into new states. He also oversaw giving millions in bonuses to both full- and part-time employees.
And, most importantly, he implemented the “store structure” initiative, which transitioned the company’s staff from 25% full-time to about 75%, not only giving employees benefits, but also offering them set schedules five days a week — comforts uncommon in retail.
“We led a great business, we grew a great business and ultimately ownership decided to cash in on that growth and appreciation and that's their right as ownership,” he says. “I am so incredibly proud of all that we did to put us in that situation.”
As to what’s next, well, “that is the question,” he says.
Now 36, Krause wants to step away from the daily grind to, first, spend more time with his two young children and then to re-center himself, dedicate some time to thinking about what, in a world without Kum & Go, truly excites him.
“I never had a Plan B,” he says. “My goal has always been to lead Kum & Go, and I never really gave other career paths much of a serious thought.”
Maybe surprisingly, he’s not jumping into a role at Krause Group, Kum & Go’s former parent company. Run by Krause’s father, Kyle Krause, the overarching Krause Group features a diverse portfolio of holdings, including an Italian pro soccer team, wineries, ranches, a hotel and a real estate development business.
“Krause Group owns a cool portfolio of companies. I, obviously, want the best for Krause Group and its companies,” he says, pausing.
“I have an incredible passion for Kum & Go. This is the company that my grandfather and my great-grandfather started. This is the company that I started at when I was 9 years old. This is the company that has bound generations and branches of my family together for a long time. And while I admire the other companies in our portfolio, I don't have the same passion for them that I hold for Kum & Go.”
More: Kum & Go finalizes sale to Utah-based Maverik convenience stores
For now, Krause and his wife, Hannah, are staying in Des Moines. Hannah owns Eden, a skincare store in the East Village, and Krause, a native, has deep ties in town.
But in exploring career opportunities, Krause says the couple are open to wherever those may take them.
“I recognize that I'm fortunate that I achieved my childhood goal. Very few people can say that,” he says. “So while it ended quicker than I expected, I got there. I had success. I did it. And I'm very thankful for that.”
Exit interview: 8 more questions with Tanner Krause as he leaves the family business
Register: Take me through the conversations that brought us here.
Krause: There's a Krause Group leadership team that sits at the parent company level, which is driving Krause Group strategy, goals, growth and financing. Then, there's 10 operating companies in the portfolio. I'm the leader of the largest, most successful of the operating companies. And none of the 10 leaders in these businesses sit or necessarily directly participate in the strategy that's being built out at the parent level.
As Krause Group was evaluating its growth and how to achieve its goals, clearly they felt the time was right to divest its biggest asset, and then rebalance the portfolio in the wake of that. In terms of the specifics as to when, why and where, those are questions better answered by the people that were in that room, and primarily my dad, the CEO.
Register: This might be a question for the Krause Group or for your dad, but why did you sell?
Krause: Certainly a question for him.
Register: Is there any truth to the speculation that it was because of the funds needed for various projects here and in Italy?
Krause: Again, you’ll have to ask him.
Register: As you’ve said, you wanted to be CEO since you were 9. How are you feeling in these last days?
Krause: I've experienced a whole range of emotions along the way.
Kum & Go has been a part of my family for more than six decades. Anytime you separate with something that has been this ingrained with your family, and your family identity, and, even more so personally for me, my vocation, of course it’s sad.
But I understand how the business world works. I understand how companies make decisions to grow and to evolve, and how markets move and change. I'm really proud of the success that we had at Kum & Go under our team's leadership. And, ultimately, that resulted in a very successful exit for our ownership group. And by many, many observations, that’s success when you own a business.
Register: You came into the business from human resources, so you know that acquisitions often mean job cuts. How is that weighing on you?
Krause: The good news is that Maverik is forecasting a very minimal job loss as a result of the acquisition, and that has helped our associates retain confidence that they’ll keep doing what they love.
The best thing that I can do, and what I have done, is to advocate for Kum & Go associates and their skill sets and help display the value that they provide to Maverik. So even if Maverick might see a redundant role on an org chart, we’re going further than that and talking about that person's skill set and background and experiences and trying to come up with solutions where we're able to maybe deploy either of those people into a new role which didn't exist when we were a smaller company.
Register: Your tenure at Kum & Go was defined by your willingness to speak out about mental health and a number of social justice issues. Without the platform of the corner office, how will you continue that work?
Krause: Largely through my volunteer work. I serve on a number of boards. My longest tenured board role is with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Iowa, and there's certainly an opportunity to lean in and help that organization. I am on the board of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business, so I intend to reach out to the dean and see if there's any additional work I can do. I'm on the United Way of Central Iowa board.
I’ll just continue to see if there's other opportunities out there for me to drive certain causes. I think there's a lot of inequities in our society that are solvable problems if you can get the right people focused and motivated to do so. One of the things that I loved about Kum & Go is I felt like we were able to push the economy in a more equitable direction, and that remains a priority of mine.
Register: What is one area that you had hoped to tackle further but didn’t have the time?
Krause: For me, it starts with pay. When you can't make ends meet with your household budget, everything else becomes a lower priority just due to the severity of the risk of what might happen.
We raised wages more than 50% in five years for the front line of our company. And we were, I think, just getting started in terms of where we wanted to go.
Register: If you think about your tenure at Kum & Go as a fairy tale, what is the moral of the story?
Krause: Be yourself. Both for me as a leader and our brand, when I started to worry less about what people thought about us and started to be authentic and to stand up for what we believe in, our success grew. It was really validating to see that level of authenticity be celebrated and rewarded to the extent that it was.
Earlier in my career, I had a lot of insecurity. I was young. I was unproven. And I didn't know if I had it in me to succeed at the level I wanted to succeed.
On the backside of this transition, I know now that I'm capable of leading a large team and a large organization, and that gives me a lot of confidence to explore a breadth of opportunities going forward.
Questions and answers have been lightly edited for clarity and space.
Courtney Crowder, the Register's Iowa Columnist, traverses the state's 99 counties telling Iowans' stories. Reach her at ccrowder@dmreg.com or 515-284-8360. Follow her on Twitter @courtneycare.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Tanner Krause has exited Kum & Go as CEO. What comes next is unclear.
