August 2024 will certainly go down in the restaurant industry’s memory as the month of CEO changes. New chief executives took over — or soon will — at Starbucks, Chipotle, Papa Johns, PJW Restaurant Group, Bloomin’ Brands, Red Lobster, Checkers, and BJ’s.
Just because they don’t have new leaders, doesn’t mean other major restaurant companies aren’t making changes too.
Chick-fil-A named a new president, the sixth in the company’s history. Panera poached a new marketing chief from Papa Johns. Popeyes has new leaders for both marketing and digital. Sweetgreen has a new chief development officer. BurgerFi named a chief restructuring officer as it tries to avoid bankruptcy. FAT Brands has new senior vice presidents for non-traditional development and international development.
Chipotle, having its hand forced by CEO Brian Niccol’s departure, announced the acceleration of leadership restructuring involving at least three executives. KFC had a big shuffle between its Canada and U.S. teams, filling a marketing vacancy on the U.S. side. And Black Bear Diner has a new chief operations officer from P.F. Chang’s.
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