Yum! Brands names chief digital & technology officer
Yum! Brands has promoted an insider and former Walmart and GE executive to head its global technology strategy.
The quick-serve and casual-dining giant has promoted Joe Park to chief digital & technology officer, effective March 1. Park, who most recently served as chief digital & technology officer for Pizza Hut Global, succeeds Clay Johnson, who will continue with Yum! as a senior advisor.
Prior to joining Yum! Brands in 2020, Park held executive leadership positions at Walmart and GE. At Walmart, Park was VP of associate digital experience and enterprise architecture, overseeing 2,000 employees and providing technology to the largest private sector workforce in the world, modernizing platforms, digitizing processes and transforming user experiences.
In his new position, Park will join the Yum! Brands global leadership team and oversee the company’s global technology strategy, partnering with its KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and the Habit Burger Grill divisions to ensure the company provides a best-in-class digital experience for customers and restaurant team members and strong economics for franchisees.
“We’ve made great progress enhancing digital ordering, implementing technologies to improve restaurant operations, leveraging data to enable smart decision-making and piloting emerging technologies, and Joe Park has been an exceptional partner on this journey over the past few years,” said Yum! Brands CFO Chris Turner. “I’m confident that Joe will help Yum! continue to strengthen our technology ecosystem and scale our digital solutions at a rapid pace to deliver leading-edge capabilities to our franchisees with advantaged economics.”
Yum!’s strategy is to own differentiated technology platforms tailored for each brand and market that enable “easy experiences” for customers, “easy operations” for restaurant teams and “easy insights” to drive growth. In 2022, Yum! Brands reached a new high of $24 billion in digital sales — doubling its digital business since 2019. The company’s next milestone is to achieve $30 billion in annual digital sales.
“I’m incredibly excited to continue working with the talented and dedicated digital and technology team members around the world, and to partner with our world-class franchisees to execute the company’s global technology strategy,” said Park. “I’m grateful to have worked alongside Clay Johnson at Yum! Brands since 2020 and look forward to continuing to help the company drive its initiatives to deliver a best-in-class digital experience for customers and restaurant team members alike.”
Yum! Brands and its subsidiaries franchise or operate a system of over 57,000 restaurants in more than 155 countries and territories under the company’s concepts: KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and the Habit Burger Grill.