Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner on leadership lessons, vision for chain’s growth

Take-Away with Sam Oches

Nation's Restaurant News

Business, Entrepreneurship

2.5 • 15 Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of Take-Away with Sam Oches, Sam talks with Wendy’s president and CEO Kirk Tanner as part of a brand new series at NRN called Signature: A CEO Series with Sam Oches, powered by The Coca-Cola Company. We’re hosting 6 Signature episodes throughout 2025, and they’re designed to introduce you to the leaders of some of the nation’s biggest restaurant companies — what has shaped their approach to leadership, how they’ve maintained balance and wellbeing, and how they’re applying their life lessons to build culture at their brands. Kirk was a natural choice to kick off the Signature series, as he just celebrated one year on the job at Wendy’s and he was able to reflect on what he’s accomplished both in his Wendy’s tenure and more broadly in his career.

For exclusive video from Sam’s time with Kirk, click here.

In this conversation, you’ll find out why:

When you’re young, you have an opportunity to build credibility
If you want to go far in your career, don’t look past your current job
A great mentor can supercharge your career
To accomplish big growth, you must start small
A diversity of perspectives and opinions will point your business in the right direction
Young leaders are destined to thrive if they’re students of the game

Have feedback or ideas for Take-Away? Email Sam at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, welcome to Takeaway with Sam Ocas, a podcast from Nation's Restaurant News. I am Sam
0:05.3	Ocas, editor-in-chief here at NRN, and this is the show where I give you an all-access pass
0:09.7	to the restaurant industry's most influential decision-makers. This week is a very special episode,
0:15.1	as I am talking with Wendy's president and CEO, Kirk Tanner, as part of a brand brand new series that we just launched at NRN
0:23.2	called Signature, a CEO series with Sam Okas, powered by the Coca-Cola Company.
0:29.0	We are hosting six signature episodes throughout 2025, and they are designed to introduce you
0:34.8	to the leaders of some of the nation's biggest restaurant companies,
0:38.0	not just who they are as executives, but also who they are as human beings. Whereas you typically
0:43.3	hear from CEOs only on earnings calls or in sound bites, signature is diving deep into their
0:49.2	backstories and their career paths to learn more about their signature style, what has shaped their approach
0:55.5	to leadership, how they've maintained balance and well-being, and how they are applying those
1:00.2	life lessons to build culture at their brands. Kirk was a natural choice to kick off the
1:05.1	signature series as he just celebrated one year on the job at Wendy's, and he was able to reflect
1:09.9	on what he's accomplished both in his tenure at Wendy's, and he was able to reflect on what he's accomplished
1:11.5	both in his tenure at Wendy's and more broadly in his career. It is a monumental time in
1:17.1	the history of Wendy's as well. The company just announced that it planned to open 1,000 new
1:22.3	locations in the next three years, which will include 70% growth internationally and a special emphasis on
1:29.6	Gen Z and Hispanic customers and also on families. Now, as I will do with each of our
1:35.9	signature CEOs, I sat down with Kirk inside one of his chains restaurants where we covered
1:40.9	everything from his childhood in Utah and Colorado to his passion for
1:45.6	consumer package goods to his vision for Wendy's path forward. And yes, you will even find out
1:51.3	how he likes to pass time on long flights and even what TV show was his last binge. In this
	...

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