News

Burger King shakes up operations efforts

February 28, 2011

Burger King Corp. has aligned its global brand management and operations teams, effective immediately, to create a single, global brand marketing and operations function. The company also has changed its North American marketing structure to fit with the region's operations function.

According to a company statement, the approach will enable faster decision-making, increases regional accountability and ensures consistency of the brand's marketing and operational standards around the world.

As a result of this realignment, the following company executives will assume roles of increased responsibility:

• Jonathan Fitzpatrick, formerly executive vice president (EVP), global operations, has assumed the newly created role of EVP, chief brand and operations officer overseeing all operations and marketing brand standards; global R&D, product innovation and global brand management.
• Steve Wiborg, EVP and president, North America, has taken on an expanded role that includes direct responsibility for all North America marketing efforts.

“Our new alignment under Jonathan’s global leadership and Steve’s North America leadership will allow us to maintain our global standards, while providing us with the flexibility we need to execute initiatives on a regional level based on local business needs,” said Bernardo Hees, chief executive officer, Burger King Corp. “With this new structure in place, we can be more nimble with our decision-making process and marketing execution.”

Also as a result of these structural changes, global chief marketing officer Natalia Franco will be leaving the organization. Franco will support BKC through a transition period.

These changes are part of the new ownership transition following Burger King’s sale to Brazilian-based 3G Capital in the fall.

In December, Burger King laid off hundreds of employees from its Miami-based headquarters and, earlier this month, the company issued pink slips to a number of U.K. employees.