STEVE Easterbrook has been fired as chief executive of McDonald’s, the fast-food chain announced Sunday, after he engaged in a consensual relationship with an employee that violated company policy.
In a statement announcing the firing, McDonald’s said the company’s board had determined that Easterbrook had “demonstrated poor judgment.”
Easterbrook, who became the chief executive in March 2015, wrote an email to employees, acknowledging the violation. “This was a mistake. Given the values of the company, I agree with the board that it is time for me to move on.”
The board met Friday and voted to fire Easterbrook after an investigation of his relationship with the employee, the company said. A McDonald’s spokeswoman declined to reveal more details about the relationship or to say when the board found out about it.
Easterbrook, who is divorced and has three daughters, will be replaced by Chris Kempczinski, who most recently served as president of McDonald’s USA.
A spokeswoman for Easterbrook, Desiree Moore, said he was “deeply grateful” for his time at McDonald’s and “acknowledges his error in judgment.”
Easterbrook, 52, had been widely credited with turning around McDonald’s after it posted one of its worst financial performances in years, in 2015. A native of Watford, England, who previously ran the company’s British business, Easterbrook emphasised technological innovation, striking food-delivery deals with the third-party apps Uber Eats and DoorDash and acquiring smaller companies that specialise in machine learning and artificial intelligence. Last year, Easterbrook was paid more than US$15 million.
“There’s no question he’s been a very good CEO during his time there,” said Jonathan Maze, editor of the trade publication Restaurant Business.
“He really made that organisation a lot leaner, they make decisions a lot more quickly,” Maze said. “They have gone from a company that was well behind on technology to one that is arguably at the forefront of things like artificial intelligence and delivery.”
Kempczinski will take over at a time when the broader fast-food industry faces significant headwinds, with Americans turning to healthier options and a tight labour market making hiring difficult.
“Casual dining has suffered, fast casual, upstarts that everybody fell in love with have struggled,” said John Hamburger, the editor of Franchise Times, another industry publication. “And McDonald’s seems like they’ve been pretty good at driving the business forward.”
-New York Times
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