Chris Kempczinski, McDonald's President and CEO – Make key strategies memorable

How Leaders Lead with David Novak

I gotta make a little confession. Back when I was the CEO of Yum! Brands, my team and I would do what we called McDonald’s Immersion Days. We just went into McDonald’s restaurants for the whole day and observed all the smart things they were doing. Then we’d figure out how we could make those smart ideas work at KFC, Taco Bell, or Pizza Hut. That’s just how much we admired McDonald’s.

These days, McDonald’s is still at the top of their game – and I’m honored to have McDonald’s President and CEO, Chris Kempczinski, joining me today. As you’ll hear in this conversation, Chris leads in the real world. He’s not the kind of guy who’s just locked away in an office lost in data and paperwork and big-picture strategies. In fact, he believes that your strategies really don’t count for much unless they’re actually showing up in the day-to-day operation of your business. And when you listen to this conversation, you will learn a LOT about how to take a smart strategy and then actually make it memorable and easy for everyone to implement.

So here is my conversation with my good friend – and soon to be yours – Chris Kempczinski.