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Lisa Ingram, CEO, White Castle
In 2018, Lisa Ingram continued to earn her title of “The Slider Queen,” ending another year filled with innovation and firsts for her family’s nearly 100-year-old burger brand.
It took more than four decades for White Castle to make its first menu change, but last year alone Ingram, the fourth-generation CEO, stewarded the launch of the plant-based Impossible Slider; opened the company’s first location in Arizona; and added delivery via a partnership with GrubHub. In July, she also oversaw the modernization of the brand’s flagship location in Columbus, Ohio, where the original White Castle stood for half a century.
“We are a 97-year-old brand,” Ingram told The Columbus Dispatch last July. “And to be relevant to today’s consumer, you have to make bold moves. You have to do exciting things.”
Indeed, Ingram has been doing just that since she was named president in 2013 and CEO in 2016 of the company co-founded by her great-grandfather.
During her tenure she’s successfully cultivated a new generation of White Castle fans, and launched some of the brand’s biggest menu innovations, including black bean and veggie sliders, and, the latest, the Impossible Slider, while never straying too far from the things the brand was built on.
If history is any indication, expect more bold moves from Ingram in the year ahead.
