Peter Perdue was named president of Popeyes in the U.S. and Canada, parent company Restaurant Brands International said on Tuesday.
Perdue had been chief operating officer of Burger King. He will take over for Jeff Klein, who is leaving RBI.
Nico Henrich will take Perdue’s old position at Burger King.
Perdue will get the responsibility of lifting Popeyes out of a sales slump lasting more than a year. The chicken chain’s same-store sales have fallen in each of the past three quarters and four of the past five, including a 2% decline last quarter. That decline came as rival KFC reported a 2% increase in the period.
RBI executives have made it clear they were not pleased with the chain’s struggles. “We’re not satisfied with our performance, and know there’s more work to do,” CEO Josh Kobza told analysts last week.
(Check out: Popeyes works to emerge from a surprising sales slump.)
Perdue has worked with RBI for 12 years and was instrumental in Burger King’s Reclaim the Flame operations improvements. He will likely be tasked with something similar at Popeyes, where the brand has had operations difficulties as it has added different products.
Perdue’s career has featured operations, franchising and finance roles and he spent time as a regional VP for Burger King in the Asia-Pacific region.
Henrich, meanwhile, has held several leaderships of his own at Burger King in franchising, development, finance, strategy and supply chain. “He has been instrumental in strengthening our system and improving franchisee profitability,” Tom Curtis, president of Burger King U.S. and Canada, said in a statement.
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