Watch the full interview now as a VladTV Youtube Member: Click Here
Part 1: Former 7-Eleven & Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes on Growing Up in Poverty
--------
Jim Keyes joined 7-Eleven in his late 20s during one of the company’s darkest financial periods. In the late 1980s, 7-Eleven’s parent, Southland Corporation, attempted a leveraged buyout amid a turbulent market crash, loading the company with $4 billion in debt at nearly 17% interest. This debt burden led to bankruptcy by 1991. Despite this daunting start, Keyes stayed with the company, eventually becoming CEO ten years later.
Keyes views the bankruptcy as a transformational opportunity. “Change equals opportunity,” he says, emphasizing that the crisis forced 7-Eleven to reinvent itself, adopting advanced technology and modern retail strategies. Keyes credits 7-Eleven Japan, which had revolutionized convenience retailing with compact stores offering high-quality food, as a vital model during restructuring. Under his leadership, 7-Eleven evolved from a bankrupt corporation to a global convenience giant with 90,000 stores worldwide, proving that resilience and innovation can turn around even the direst circumstances.
