Behind the Scenes: Why Anything's Possible For This Wendy's CMO

Yeah, hey Lisa, I'm great. Thank you so much for having me today.

Oh, thank you. Well, one of the things that makes it that much more impressive, aside from the work you do, is that you won the Change Maker Award from Women's Food Service Forum, and from QSR Magazine you were recognized as a Young Restaurant Leader to Watch. These are pretty cool things. Congratulations.

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. Honors aside, I love the Change Maker phrase. That's such a cool moniker for me. Those are so exciting because both of them were about recognition of what I had done, but also the progress or opportunity with what's ahead. I think about that, especially the Change Maker, not accepting the status quo, redefining what it means to get work done, have an impact on a business, and the result. So yeah, thank you.

Yeah, I do. I have moments where I'll be talking to friends or parents, especially my parents, and when you have the opportunity to step back from the day-to-day and realize where you are, the people and the team I get to work with, and the amazing brand we have at Wendy's, sometimes it feels surreal. Then I remind myself that I have also worked super hard to get here and had a lot of people help me, invest in me, and advocate for me. All that was done very intentionally. So while it feels too good to be true, I know it's not because, even though I might look young, I have some wrinkles to show for the work too.

It's fun. At Wendy's, we're very fortunate to have a diverse group in all different ways, and age is one of those factors. To be a voice around the table, it helps me approach things from a slightly different angle. The phase of life I'm in with the age of my kids is a good reminder to everybody that we're all in different places. One of the things I love most about the culture we have at Wendy's is I can bring those elements to my job every single day. I think it helps make me a more effective leader, not just for the senior tables I sit around, but more importantly with my team, because they know it wasn't that long ago that I was on maternity leave and I get it. I know what you're going through. Connecting with people as people first, not as employees or brand managers, is so important to me. Being very open about where I am in life and what I'm working through as a person, as a mom, as a CMO, is all part of the transparency that's so important to me.

For me, it's really about not accepting the status quo or anything that has to be the way something's done. There are a couple of personal examples and some professional ones. First, as you've done with your snooping, I don't have the most typical background for someone who gets to a chief marketing officer position. I spent a lot of time in finance and analytics, a little bit in investor relations. I relate that to Change Maker because it's allowed me to bring a new lens and layer to how I lead a marketing team and how I go about the marketing work. I like to say I'm a marketer who knows my way around a P&L, and that is a superpower in many ways. We're all in businesses about making money, with shareholders, boards, and franchisees as stakeholders. One of the things I love most is connecting what we do with customers to how we make money. I always remind myself and my team that we don't make money unless a customer takes a different action than they did today. Not looking at things in silos is one way I've been able to make a big impact and change Wendy's. On the personal side, I made this crazy decision to train for a pretty big triathlon. It's actually in less than a month. When I first signed up, I thought, 'I can't do this. People in my position with the workload I have, the age of my kids, there's no possible way.' Then I reminded myself that's not what I'm about. I'm about showing that things are possible, maybe if they haven't been done before. So that's a personal example of thinking differently, not letting things feel impossible, and pushing through.

It's in a big lake, one of the Great Lakes. No sharks. But recently, I was on a work trip with a core group of agency leaders and our marketing leadership team here at Wendy's. The training schedule is so intense that I couldn't miss some key workouts. So, speaking of sharks, I went open water swimming in the ocean at 7 a.m., and the whole time I was scanning for sharks. But I got my swim in and felt very accomplished for the day. Some of the commitment and hours have some people thinking I might be a little cuckoo.

When I think back to graduating, I knew I wanted to be in the business world. I had no idea the specifics. Both my parents were in accounting and finance, so I was very familiar with that space. I was good at math, so people encouraged me to go that route. In college, I was a hostess and then a server at LongHorn Steakhouse for four and a half years. That's where I really fell in love with the restaurant industry. I saw the ability to connect with people. For all of us, there are mundane administrative things about our work, but finding a higher purpose is what really motivates me. All the way back to being a server, I loved knowing that someone walked in and asked for my section because that meant I was giving them something they didn't think they could get elsewhere. Finding those personal connections, those moments to make somebody's meal, day, or week a little brighter, I found so much joy in that. I also love food. I'm always worried about where my next meal is coming from. The team here at Wendy's jokes that I start asking about the next meal before we're done with the current one. The intersection of how food allows people to have shared moments is really cool. I figured out early, based on some people I knew and an internship, that the restaurant industry was much bigger than I was aware of. I started at Bob Evans, a regional family dining chain headquartered here in Columbus, Ohio, and that led to Wendy's. I've never looked back. The thing I think is so cool is the idea of making someone's life a little bit better. People eat all the time. Compared to the car or insurance industry, where purchases are made maybe once every five to seven years, we get the chance to impact people multiple times a day. That's what's led me to the restaurant industry and kept me very involved.

It's an interesting comparison. For me, it wasn't that when I moved into this role, all of a sudden there were new things I'd never done before. I'd done them before, but from the other side of the table, from the finance person's role. Because of that, I have a great rapport with our finance group today. I love working with that team. The tighter we can be, the more we can do together. It's all about growing the business and getting consumers to love us even more. We say turn our fans into friends. Most Taylor Swift fans have a one-way relationship with her. For us, we want to turn those fans into friends, a two-way relationship. That's what I'm super excited about, and as a team, we're spending a lot of time on that now.

It's funny. The setbacks or barriers we didn't see coming, for a lot of us, the year 2020 brought a lot of those and a lot of reflection. But for me, there was a moment at Wendy's. I came from Bob Evans to Wendy's to join the investor relations team with a gentleman who was the vice president. He called me and said I would love Wendy's, that the brand was growing and thriving, and future opportunities would be more for me. Unfortunately, he passed away just a couple of years into my time at Wendy's. It was an interesting moment. As a high-achievement-oriented, results-oriented, career-oriented person, it was a moment to realize there's so much more in the world and in our life and purpose than just our job. Experiencing that on an emotional level with co-workers was strange. Usually, a loss like that is with personal family, but here we were as a Wendy's team grieving together. There were self-reflections about how I spend my time and the meaning of life, but also a deepened loyalty to Wendy's because I saw senior leaders, male and female, all ages, being very vulnerable with emotions and in tears. That propelled me forward in a different way and shifted the course of my life. I owe being at Wendy's to him. I always think about whether somebody would feel that same way about me. Am I spending my time with higher purpose to make people's lives better? I came up with a personal mantra called 'Better for Being Here.' It's my challenge to myself, whether it's a person bagging my groceries, an Uber driver, or my team meeting, to make sure in small and big ways I am leaving things better than they were before I was involved. I don't do it perfectly, but I look back to that moment as a time when I decided to approach things differently.

You're exactly right. I had the chance, I think it was in 2013. Wendy's had been through a number of changes and chapters of history. When I joined, I was in a team and function where there were mostly men. A lot of meetings had different people at the table who were men. I thought, I've been involved with the Women's Food Service Forum and exposed to women in very senior leadership positions. For me, there was something very desirable about that. When you see it, it can be possible. Exposure helped me chart my own journey. But as I joined Wendy's, there weren't that many women in senior leadership. So I put together a white paper on how I thought we needed to start a women's group. I asked a woman named Abigail Pringle, who is on our senior leadership team still today, if she would go out to lunch with me and listen to my pitch. She said she had been thinking about the same thing, and we made it happen. The two of us put together an action plan. I would do the work, she would be the executive sponsor and get the support. Now we have over a hundred members of that employee resource group. It was the first ERG at Wendy's, and now we have seven across all different employee groups. Each of our senior leadership team members is an executive sponsor. Wendy's has always had a great culture, all about people. We say it's a work family. In today's world, where people need a place where they can be open, transparent, and safe, and others need a place to grow and learn about groups not exactly like them, it's put more framework and formality around that. So that 'Better for Being Here' mindset was put into action in a pretty big way.

I have two. My daughter is nine, her name is Harper, and my son is seven, his name is Coulter.

Almost regardless of industry, I would tell them to be convicted in your vision and purpose, and also be willing to adjust as you go. Stay open to new experiences because you never know what will come from them. You cannot underemphasize the importance of relationships. As I've grown into different positions, relationships and the collaboration that can come from them are invaluable. I try to make sure I have people around me who will build into me and fill my cup, but also call me out when they see me doing things inconsistent with how they know I want to live my mission or not working best for my team. If nobody's giving me feedback, that's a bad sign. I would encourage my daughter, my son, anybody, to know you're never going to have it all figured out. You've got to be smart enough and humble enough to know that, and strategic enough to surround yourself with people who care enough about you because they know you care about them, and are willing to give you feedback on your blind spots.

Where's the beef? That is the most iconic slogan. Everyone knows it. No matter how old you are, you've probably heard it.

Ready. Let's do it.

Perfect segue. Nike.

Is it Dove chocolate? No, it's L'Oreal.

M&M's. That was in 1949 or the 50s. They were so consistent for so long.

It's either Folgers or Maxwell House. I think it's Maxwell House, right? 1917.

That's bad. It seemed easier before. Campbell Soup?

Well, I say you're about 70.

Bounty.

Where do I start? I think the biggest is probably that I had an advisor recently tell me that I am tough and tender. I was like, 'What?' The more I thought about it, I was like, 'Oh yeah, I like that. I'll embrace that.' In that is the juxtaposition of what people may get wrong about me. Starting with the tender side, people are so important to me. I tend to start all engagements and relationships by getting to know someone as a person. What are you into? What's your history? What are your motivators? What's your family like? Where do you like to go on vacation? Because I believe any good relationship comes from knowing that person and helping them do more of that. Yes, we're going to do business together along the way. So because of that, people could really underestimate how competitive I am, how results-driven I am, and how very focused I am on achieving the business result. When this woman played back to me 'tough and tender,' it was like, 'Wow, I guess that is it.' I always felt like those things were in conflict, but they don't have to be. They can live in the same person and in the same moments. Because I have such great relationships with the team here at Wendy's, it's great to have a work family where you can have fun. It doesn't mean my boss doesn't give me very direct feedback or that we don't have uncomfortable conversations. But it almost makes those more meaningful because there's a loyalty to that person and a shared commitment to the vision and journey we're on together. So I think what some get wrong is thinking, 'She's approachable and sympathetic, how could she be that good of a business leader?' But I found the balance is actually pretty unique and it's what makes me me. So I've learned to embrace it.

I found that having conversations with teams or individuals early in a relationship, definitely at the beginning of every year and halfway through the year, checking in on what we set out to achieve and how we're doing, helps demystify things. But yeah, you're right about what it can cause. I think we're in a pretty good spot. Part of that is me learning to embrace the balance I bring, whether it's finance and marketing living together, or being tender but also tough. Luckily, you didn't see my tough side when I was giving you your little quiz. It could have gone way worse. That's why I asked, 'Where are we on the numbers? Is this a 50? Are we a 60?' So we're good.

Food that brings back a memory for me... I'm a glutton for pizza. I love all kinds of pizza. It's easy, you usually know what you're going to get. For me, it's cheese or pepperoni, pretty plain. It's one I can share with my kids. We do family date nights now, and sometimes we pick the restaurant, sometimes the kids pick. But nothing with the power of nostalgia like what we see with the Frosty. The T-Pain collab was amazing. You meet somebody in an airport, they see Wendy's on my shirt, and they say, 'Oh, my grandpa used to buy me Frosties every time I used to go visit him.' It's really cool to have those personal stories come through. The team that did the T-Pain collab found this magic. Both the Frosty and that music have a nostalgia memory associated with them, so it went together perfectly. I introduced my children to the 'Buy You a Frosty' song, and it was fun to think about where I was in my life when that song came out and then share it with them today.

It's so crazy. One of the friends involved in Wendy's Wednesdays at Gahanna Lincoln High School, which is only 12 miles from this building, is one of the friends involved in one of my groups and rituals today. I'm so blessed that she's still a part of my life. About five years ago, I got involved with a group of women that run in my community. Three or four days a week, we run together in the morning. There's a doctor, an executive at a big bank, teachers, stay-at-home moms. The physical and emotional fulfillment I get from that ritual and rhythm is truly special. With that group of women, we can solve anything, whether it's somebody's personal thing or a work thing. So that's one of those routines, not quite like what we were doing in high school at lunch at Wendy's, but one I look forward to so much. If I haven't been with the group for a couple of weeks, my husband will say, 'You need to go run with the girls. You're wound a little tight.' So that's the one I thought of when you talked about a similar thing in my adult life today.

Well, thanks for having me. Thanks for having Wendy's. I really appreciate the time.