Director of Proprietary & MTO

Circle K is a leading global convenience store brand with a strong presence across North America. Renowned for its commitment to delivering an exceptional customer experience, Circle K integrates convenience retail with high-quality foodservice offerings. The company continuously innovates its product and service platforms to meet evolving consumer demands in fast and convenient meal solutions. Circle K's proprietary Menu-to-Order (MTO) platform serves as a cornerstone of its foodservice strategy, aiming to offer convenient, freshly prepared foods that resonate with today’s fast-paced lifestyles. Founded on a foundation of operational excellence and customer focus, Circle K combines extensive network reach with a forward-looking approach to food innovation, placing a high priority on safety, quality, and operational scalability.

The Director of Proprietary & MTO role is a senior leadership position responsible for overseeing Circle K’s proprietary Menu-to-Order food platforms across North America. This pivotal role involves owning the strategy, development, execution standards, and performance optimization of Circle K’s proprietary MTO concepts to ensure they are distinctly positioned in the marketplace. The Director will lead initiatives that drive menu innovation while ensuring operational simplicity and profitability. By partnering closely with Culinary Innovation, Category Management, Operations, Training, Supply Chain, Technology, and Quality Assurance teams, the Director ensures the delivery of MTO programs that not only boost traffic and product attachment rates but also maintain consistent execution and strict food safety standards at the store level.

This position demands a blend of strategic vision and hands-on operational expertise to develop and evolve proprietary MTO concepts. The role is tasked with defining platform positioning, menu architecture, and long-term evolution plans that align with Circle K’s overall foodservice and quick service restaurant (QSR) objectives. The Director must balance guest experience, speed of service, operational simplicity, and profitability by optimizing menu offerings and supporting value-based, limited-time, and regional promotions.

Operational excellence is critical for this role, which requires developing playbooks and standard operating procedures that support store readiness, equipment standards, kitchen workflows, and employee training. The Director will conduct field visits to validate execution standards and identify gaps, ensuring the scalability of MTO programs and their consistent implementation across all locations.

Another key aspect is continuous performance monitoring and improvement. The Director analyzes MTO performance metrics such as sales, attachment rates, speed of service, and waste to identify opportunities for enhanced labor efficiency and improved guest satisfaction. Leading pilots, tests, and phased rollouts of new initiatives, the Director builds strong business cases for MTO program enhancements or geographic expansions.

Cross-functional leadership and governance are essential aspects of this role. The Director works in close collaboration with multiple departments, including Operations, Quality Assurance, Supply Chain, IT, and Marketing, to ensure compliance with food safety and regulatory requirements such as FSQA and HACCP. Aligning technology partners to support ordering systems and digital platforms is also vital to success in this role.

Travel is also a requirement, with the Director expected to spend up to 60 percent of their time visiting field locations to ensure firsthand insight into store operations and execution. This dynamic role offers opportunities to shape the future of convenience retail foodservice through innovation, operational excellence, and customer-centric program delivery.