Jacques D'Amours

He was part of Couche-Tard from its first year

D'Amours joined Alimentation Couche-Tard as a co-founder in 1980, the year the business opened its first convenience store in Laval, Quebec. Corporate filings describe him as part of the founding group rather than as an heir to an established retail company. ^[1][2]

Over a 34-year operating career he worked across technical services, sales, administration and operations. Those roles put him inside the execution of a business that grew from a local convenience-store operation into a much larger acquisition-driven retailer. ^[2]

Couche-Tard compounded that early platform through repeated acquisitions and international expansion. Forbes says the company has grown to more than 17,000 owned or franchised stores worldwide, a scale that makes the retained founder equity far more valuable than the original operation. ^[1]

A large retained founder stake became the core of his fortune

The company's 2022 proxy reported that D'Amours still held 60.7 million Class A shares, then worth about C$3.1 billion. That ownership makes the wealth mechanism unusually direct: decades of operating growth and acquisitions increased the value of equity he held as a co-founder. ^[2]

D'Amours retired from his executive career in 2014 and left Couche-Tard's board in 2023. The company marked his departure by crediting his contribution to its growth and culture, while his billionaire wealth remained tied to the founder stake accumulated through building the retailer rather than an inherited operating asset. ^[3][1]