Executive-suite activity levels have ramped up at a number of major chains recently, as the past 10 days have seen a notable number of leadership changes within the industry, including those at RBI, Bojangles, Tropical Smoothie Café, Jamba Juice and others.
The largest shakeup occurred at Restaurant Brands International (parent to Burger King, Tim Hortons and Popeyes) as CEO Daniel Schwartz has moved on to an Executive Chairman role (in what he insists is a long-term deal). Schwartz was a key player in the private equity acquisition of the three chains and the formation of RBI. He makes way for new CEO Jose Cil who has served as President of Burger King since 2014. Also moving into the leadership structure is new COO Josh Kobza.
The front office at Bojangles’ got a McDonald’s–inspired makeover, as the chain’s new private equity owners announced that they’ve brought in Golden-Arches veterans Jose Armario to serve as CEO and Brian Unger to serve as COO.
There’s also a new CEO in town at Tropical Smoothie Café. Company veteran Charles Watson got the nod. Upon announcing Watson’s promotion, Tropical Smoothie Café stated that his goal is to “achieve $1 billion in sales and more than 1,500 cafes by 2023.” That will be a tall order, as reaching the 1,500 mark will mean more than doubling the company’s current footprint of 720 locations.
Sticking with the smoothie theme, FOCUS Brands shuffled the leadership deck at Jamba Juice, bringing in Geoff Henry as the brand’s President and Shivram Vaideeswaran as Chief Marketing Officer while promoting Jaime Denney to VP of Operations.
In other moves, JAB’s Caribou Coffee promoted President John Butcher to CEO, and Papa John’s thought it time to create a Chief People Officer position and brought in Marvin Boakye to help get a handle on its company culture.
Are you in the market for foodservice sales leads? Chain Store Guide’s Restaurant Franchisee Premier Database contains listings for more than 350 executives and decision makers at the companies that appear in bold in this story alone, and the address fill rate for these 350+ personnel is greater than 75%.
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