When Catherine Tan-Gillespie assumed the role of KFC U.S. president last April, the chain was weeks away from reporting -2% Q1 2025 same-store sales.
The next quarter was also negative, marking its seventh quarter in a row in the red for the metric. Further, the legacy chicken chain was ceding market share to a growing crop of newer chains like Raising Cane’s and Wingstop. In 2025, KFC’s domestic systemwide sales were down 4.6%, according to Technomic data, pushing the brand outside of the top 20. Conversely, sales at Dave’s Hot Chicken, founded in 2017, were up 51%, landing that chain within the top 65. Competition was intensifying and KFC, and its Original Herbs and Spices, was being left behind.
Tan-Gillespie had her work cut out for her, but she was up for the challenge.
“I really wanted to do this job. I’m passionate about this brand,” she said.
She first joined the brand in 2015 as a marketing director for KFC South Pacific, working her way up to CMO for the division. In late 2017, Tan-Gillespie was named global chief marketing officer at KFC, a position she held until 2022 when she was tapped to lead the KFC Canada division, which was in need of a step change.
“When I joined in Australia, I got to see how KFC showed up around the world. Then I ran Canada and created my own playbook. It worked well, and we were able to turn around the business there,” Tan-Gillespie said. “Canada and U.S. have a ton of similarities, which gives me the confidence that we could do the same thing in the U.S.”
A few short months after joining the U.S. system, Tan-Gillespie and her team mounted a Kentucky Fried Comeback. As part of the campaign, the chain admitted it had lost its way and that founder Colonel Sanders “would not be happy” about its recent market share loss. She publicly asked fans for a second chance and promised to listen more and address their feedback—the good and the bad.
The company brought back its popular Potato Wedges with a viral post on X that simply said, “Here, Damn.” It also brought back its Original Honey BBQ Chicken sandwich, launched more sauces and beverages and made sure its Original Recipe Tenders were in the spotlight more to meet consumers’ increasing demand for the meat block. And, it brought on a new chief growth officer and a new chief marketing officer.
In Q3 2025, KFC U.S. same-store sales turned positive at 2%. It has been in the black ever since, including 1% growth in each of the past two quarters.
“We know some of our direct competitors have been in the high single digits. Plus-ones are not going to get us where we need to be but we’re recalibrating,” Tan-Gillespie said. “The Kentucky Fried Comeback is a bold ambition, but we … invented the category and we are working to get back to being the leaders.”
Tan-Gillespie’s playbook is focused on modernizing the brand and “understanding what the customers need and doing it better than the competitors.” It is outlined by “the four Ps” — product, promotion, place and price.
“The product is the menu and the product experience. Promotion is the calendar and communications. Place is the digital and physical image of the brand. And pricing — we know customers are keyed in on value right now. That’s the customer-facing plan,” she said. “Supporting all that is our internal plan — getting the culture right and our partnerships with franchisees right.”
Out of that plan, value has become the biggest priority because of the macroeconomic environment and, indeed, KFC has become a much bigger part of the consideration set for value-seeking consumers. KFC started the year, for instance, with $5 bowls and has since launched digital deals on Sundays, $20 Build a Buckets, $10 Tuesdays, and $7, $9 and $11 Value Feast Boxes, which Tan-Gillespie said are a page pulled from sibling brand Taco Bell and its success with its tiered Luxe Boxes.
“Disruptive value is all about driving traffic. We’ve done quite well with $10 Tuesdays and recently expanded the promotion to everyday with highly incremental and modern formats customers can choose from (like tenders),” she said. “We’re playing from a place of strength with our $10 buckets.”
Bringing Colonel Sanders back into the spotlight has also created some momentum, she added. In the Kentucky Fried Comeback campaign, he was the central character, the motivation behind the turnaround. More recently, he appeared in a catchy and playful video called “Finger Lickin’ Machine,” which was featured on social feeds and streaming platforms to promote the Value Feast Boxes. It is reminiscent of the rotating celebrity Colonels that bolstered the chain prior to and through the pandemic.
“The brand does well when the Colonel is around. He’s highly relevant and we want to have a clear role for him and his obsession with fried chicken,” Tan-Gillespie said.
We can expect KFC to continue leveraging the equity of the Colonel, as well as the brand itself, as it continues to gain traction from its comeback plan.
“People would love to have a $5 billion brand in this market with 3,500 restaurants and a 75-year history. That’s powerful. When I came into this role, I immediately understood that Americans have an amazing affinity for this brand and they are rooting for us to win,” Tan-Gillespie said. “We just need to show them reasons to believe in KFC again.”