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Eric Hildenbrand is Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer of McLane Company, one of the largest distributors in the United States, serving restaurants, convenience stores, drug stores, and mass merchants. As Chief Strategy Officer, Eric advances McLane’s corporate vision and enterprise strategy, oversees the company’s business development activity, and leads its transformation.

Prior to taking on the role of Chief Strategy Officer, Eric served as McLane’s Chief Transformation Officer and General Counsel. As Chief Transformation Officer, Eric designed the company’s transformation goals and initiatives, built its transformation team, and led its change management efforts. As McLane’s General Counsel, he provided strategic legal advice on transactional, litigation, regulatory, and operational matters, with a focus on reducing overall legal and compliance risk while growing revenue and income.

Eric was previously a Senior Counsel and Compliance Officer for General Electric Capital’s Equipment Finance business. Before joining GE, Eric was a lawyer with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, specializing in defending companies and individuals in Securities and Exchange Commission, Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, and Congressional investigations, as well as conducting internal investigations for public companies. Eric also has experience in SEC reporting matters.

Eric has published articles on accounting and tax compliance. He has also guest-lectured on compliance and ethics at the Jindal School of Management at the University of Texas.

Eric focuses his chartable work on providing students with access to higher education. He is an active Rotarian, leading his club’s scholarships and educational activities and mentoring students in Central Texas.

Eric received his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center. He received his undergraduate degree in political science from Muhlenberg College, where he currently serves on the Board of Trustees.

Eric, his wife, and three children live in Temple, Texas.

Gray Taylor grew up in the convenience store industry with the opening of the family’s first convenience store in 1963. Involved in the family 87 store retail business, Gray gained experience in all phases of convenience store and fuels retail operations, and pioneered consumer financial services in the convenience industry.

After his Market Maker experience on the CBOE, Gray returned to the family business to start a fuels retail business. He also founded a consumer banking service; the first retailer-owned electronic banking network.

Gray has more than 15 years of vendor experience, including global product strategy and executive leadership, for three of the world’s largest retail petroleum equipment and systems vendors and Vice President of Research & Technology for the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS).

Gray is Executive Director for Conexxus (www.conexxus.org), the industry’s technology and standards non-profit, where its highly experienced team leads the digitization of convenience and energy retail.

He also consults and participates with NACS’ executive team (www.convenience.org) on innovations, payment, and technology issues. Gray is the founder of TruAge, the AI (8112) project, and several other NACS initiatives aimed at improving the industry’s preparedness and innovation for the digital future.

Gray graduated from Denison University with a B.A. in Economics in 1981 and has received certification from all NACS executive programs. He lives in Georgetown, TX with his wife Rachel and their five kids – all in Texas Universities. He can be reached at +1 512.508.3469, or [email protected].