Dutch Bros, the drive-thru beverage chain, announced a trio of new executive hires on Monday, saying that the changes bring people on board who know what it’s like to grow a brand.
Joshua Guenser, a former CFO with the fast-casual pizza chain MOD Pizza, will come in as the new CFO. He will take over for Charles Jemley, who is retiring, on March 31. Jemley will remain with the company as an advisor “to facilitate a smooth transition.”
Sumitro Ghosh, meanwhile, will join the company on Jan. 15 as its “incoming president of operations.” Ghosh, a former Nike executive, will spend the first few months on the job in an “immersive field experience,” working with field leaders across the company’s markets. Dutch Bros’ board will then have the option to name Ghosh permanent president of operations.
Jess Elmquist, a longtime executive with the fitness chain Lifetime Fitness, took over as chief people officer on Monday.
Brian Maxwell, a longtime Dutch Bros executive and currently the chief operating officer, will transition to a new role as vice chairman of the board, reporting to Executive Chairman Travis Boersma.
The moves follow the promotion of Christine Barone to CEO.
“I think, as you build a great brand, it really requires a mix of knowing what your history is and what makes you special,” Barone said at the ICR Conference in Orlando on Monday. “And then adding folks who have been there and scaled. So, we’re continuing to build a strong leadership team.”
It also comes as the beverage chain continues to push aggressive unit growth. Dutch Bros finished 2023 with 831 locations, largely in the Pacific Northwest and Southwest. It added another 159 shops last year, all but 13 of them company operated.
The company plans to add another 150 to 165 locations this year. It expects to continue expanding into new markets before building more units in existing markets. “We’re going to go a little bit wider before we get deeper,” Barone told investors.
She said the company wants to be “really, really thoughtful” about its strategy for breaking into a new market, first by finding the right place for the first shop, and then the right place for the second and the third shop. “As we go into these new markets, we want to leave enough time to really drive that interest from new customers,” she said.
The shift in opening strategy could be a sign that the company is rethinking some of its more aggressive development in existing markets. Dutch Bros opened locations in stronger markets, such as Sacramento, which pulled same-store sales down in those markets, leading to questions from investors.
Dutch Bros last year kicked off some surprisingly broad changes in management, naming the recently hired Barone CEO and adding a new chief marketing officer in Tana Davila. That came less than two years after an otherwise successful 2021 initial public offering.
Dutch Bros also plans to explore different prototypes and new ways to finance new units. For instance, the company is planning to look more at end-cap units. It has few such locations but believes that the company could be more flexible on opening units, based on the needs of a market.
Barone also noted that the company has learned a lot as it has rapidly added new shops. “The benefit of having opened so many shops in the last couple of years is we have a lot of data now on what works,” Barone said.
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