Fear not, fans of fantasy football. The close of the NFL season needn’t end your quest for managerial glory. The thrills will keep coming if you simply shift to the red-hot new form of fantasy squad-building, picking the ideal restaurant C-suite.
Never heard of such a thing, you say? That’s because it doesn’t exist. But if armchair athletes spend hundreds of dollars to field an imaginary football or baseball team, why wouldn’t restaurant vets indulge their inner CEO by brainstorming an imaginary chain management roster?
Just keep your hands off these potential draftees. They’re already part of my fantasy home-office team.
Chief people officer(s): Ally and Scott Svenson, co-founders, MOD Pizza
The restaurant industry has been hurting for employees since at least the 1980s, but it’s done little in those 40-odd years to address the fundamental problems of a shrinking labor pool, a terrible image as an employer and the ridiculous notion that what drew young hires in the 1970s should still work today.
The husband-and-wife team behind the regional pizza chain are responding with more than handwringing. Their sales pitch is simple: You can earn a paycheck anywhere. Join us if you’re looking for opportunity, or what’s becoming the magic word in restaurant recruitment.
They back up that assertion with progressive personnel programs that make Chipotle and Starbucks seem old-school.
In some instances, the opportunity they extend is a second chance. MOD is on the forefront of the private sector’s efforts to prove a criminal conviction shouldn’t tar someone for life as a never-hire. It was a Day One participant in a fledgling industrywide program to turn ex-offenders into restaurant employees. The pool it’s tapping is not insignificant. Plus, everyone wins—new hire, tax payer and MOD alike.
For that reason alone, they’ll each get an office in my virtual C-suite.
Chief marketing officer: Morgan Flatley, global CMO, McDonald’s
Yeah, it’s easy to be a marketing superstar when you have a budget larger than the GNPs of many developed nations. But the way that fortune has been spent earns Flatley a berth on our squad.
Consider, for instance, the campaign McDonald’s aired in the U.S. earlier this year, a compilation of TV and movie clips where the Golden Arches got a mention or a cameo. It allowed the brand to remain on the airwaves with fresh creative while actors and writers were on strike. And who else was willing to let the Grimace try a comeback?
Under Flatley, McDonald’s marketing has grown up. You might still catch a few cartoonish stars to its massive advertising effort. But the star of any spot today is more likely to be the chain’s food or drinks.
Chief concept officer: Elon Musk, founder, Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Co.
He may be a flaming butthole, but the man has vision. Think about it: One of his ventures, The Boring Co., wants to ease the traffic of major metro areas by digging tunnels beneath clogged surface-level streets. The prototype is already functioning in Los Angeles, arguably the world’s largest parking lot.
And he’s done for electric cars what Henry Ford did for the gas-powered versions.
If ever there was a person who’d bring unsurpassed creativity to the evolution of a restaurant concept, or the whole industry for that matter, it’s the eccentric billionaire. He has the ingenuity an industry in transition direly needs.
And ours is squarely in that inflection point. The skyrocket that’s been lit under restaurant prices is eroding the chain sector’s historic strength of offering an affordable alternative to preparing your own meals. Can the business find the efficiencies to restore that drawing power? In the full-service sector, is there a feasible replacement for tipping, a convention that’s looking more problematic than ever? How about a whole new type of restaurant, the likes of which the world has never seen before?
Unprecedented entrepreneurial and brain power are needed to address those challenges. That’s why it’ll be interesting to see what Musk brings to the business in the restaurant he’s currently building in Los Angeles.
Chief executive officer: John Chidsey, CEO, Subway
Would you have bet he (or anyone else) could turn the gasping sandwich brand around? He took on a mess of biblical proportions and methodically worked through the issues. Little was left unchanged, from the menu to marketing to operations to personnel. No sacred cows were spared, and opposition from the field didn’t stop the former BK chief from doing what struck him as musts.
Now it boasts a market worth of nearly $10 billion, as its would-be buyer, Inspire Brands, can attest.
Chief financial officer: A yeti
No, not one of those popular drink coolers. We’re talking about one of those abominable snowmen-like critters that live (mostly) unseen in the Himalayas and other mountainous areas unfit for humans.
The popular knock against them is, first, they may not exist, and second, their knowledge of finance is abysmally weak. But think of how much fun a financial conference would be if investors questioned the critter’s P&L management abilities during a post-presentation Q&A. And what activist shareholder would dare suggest a change in strategy? Or even a full-body haircut?