Murphy USA has named Jim McPhail as its new senior vice president of asset development, the convenience retailer announced on LinkedIn this week.
McPhail joins Murphy after spending the past five and half years with fast-casual salad chain Sweetgreen, where he was most recently its chief development officer. In that position, McPhail led Sweetgreen’s site selection, lease administration and construction and facilities management.
McPhail left Sweetgreen on Dec. 31 and was replaced by Timothy Noonan, the chain’s former VP of operations, strategy and restaurant concept design.
Although McPhail has decades of restaurant and retail development experience, he’s now stepping into the convenience store industry for the first time. He joins one of the largest c-store retailers in the U.S. in Murphy, which operates over 1,700 locations across 27 states.
A spokesperson from Murphy shared that McPhail officially joined the company in January, but declined to share more details of his new role.
“We’re thrilled about the positive impact that Jim’s leadership and his more than 30 years of experience across Asset Development and Real Estate will bring to the organization,” Murphy said in its LinkedIn announcement.
Prior to joining Sweetgreen in 2019, McPhail spent nearly two years as chief growth officer for coffeehouse chain Philz Coffee, which has about 70 locations across California and Illinois, according to his LinkedIn bio. Before that, he spent over 20 years in growth and development leadership positions at a variety of well-known companies, such as healthcare company DaVita, 24 Hour Fitness, Kohl’s Department Stores and The Home Depot.
As SVP of asset development, McPhail will likely help progress Murphy’s store development strategy, which is set to change course in 2025.
In its fourth-quarter earnings call on Thursday, Murphy leadership said it will focus more on opening new-to-industry convenience stores rather than the raze-and-rebuild focus it used in 2024, after a series of delays hurt merchandise and fuel sales. Murphy intends to open up to 50 new-to-industry c-stores and remodel up to 30 locations in 2025, leaders said during the call.
