Categories: Media Moves

Coverage: More executive shakeup at McDonald’s

Two more top executives will be leaving fast food restaurant chain McDonald’s Corp. by the end of the year as it continues to struggle to maintain growth.

Julie Jargon of The Wall Street Journal has the news:

Karen King, the company’s chief field officer, plans to retire at year-end. Ms. King, 60 years old, is in charge of overseeing more than 14,200 McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S.
Erik Hess, 51, a senior vice president of customer experience focused on menu and strategy and insights, is also planning to retire.
“While Karen and Erik will be greatly missed, their retirements provide an opportunity to change our organizational structure to further enhance our connectivity with our owner-operators and our customers,” a McDonald’s spokeswoman said.
The departures come after the company said in August that McDonald’s USA President Mike Andres would retire at the end of this year. Mr. Andres brought Ms. King back from retirement in 2014 to help improve the U.S. business and brought Mr. Hess back from Asia, where he was in charge of strategy. Before Ms. King returned to McDonald’s, she had retired from being the East Division president of McDonald’s USA.

Krystina Gustafson of CNBC.com focused on other departures:

The departures are the latest in a string of executive exits from the fast-food giant, which is trying to improve its U.S. business. In August, the company said its domestic President Mike Andres plans to retire at the end of 2016.David Hoffmann, who headed up McDonald’s high-growth markets, moved over to Dunkin’ Donuts earlier this month. And after 20 years with the company, Chief Administrative Officer Pete Bensen also recently retired.
Chris Kempczinski, who previously served as executive vice president of strategy, business development and innovation, will transition into the role of McDonald’s USA president on Jan. 1, Hickey said.
Charlie Robeson will take on expanded responsibilities as U.S. chief restaurant officer, which include overseeing operations for McDonald’s company-owned restaurants and franchising.

In another twist, Nico Pitney of The Huffington Post is reporting that McDonald’s largest franchisee is going totally cage-free:

Arcos Dorados, the world’s largest McDonald’s franchisee and the largest operator of fast-food restaurants in Latin America, said in a statement that it will serve exclusively cage-free eggs by 2025, a shift that will impact the welfare of millions of animals.
The new policy, developed in conjunction with Humane Society International, reflects a growing focus by U.S. animal protection groups on securing cage-free commitments internationally. Burger King recently announced a similar pledge for its Latin American supply chain.
Roughly 5 billion egg-laying chickens are raised each year worldwide and most spend their entire lives intensively confined, held in small wire enclosures called battery cages.
Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University, refers to caged hens as “the most closely confined, overcrowded and generally miserable animals in America.” In Latin America, where Arcos Dorados operates most of its 2,100 restaurants, conditions for these birds are even worse.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.