How Did I Get Here?

Greg Creed

Chief executive officer, Yum! Brands
from
  • Education
  • MacGregor State High School, Brisbane, Australia, class of 1974
  • Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, class of 1977
  • Work Experience
  • 1977–86
    Brand manager for detergents, marketing manager for bar soaps and fabric softeners, Unilever Australia
  • 1987–88
    Detergents coordinator, Unilever London
  • 1989–94
    Category director for personal washing, Unilever New York
  • 1994–2001
    Chief marketing officer for KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell in Australia and New Zealand, PepsiCo Restaurants International
  • 2001–05
    Chief marketing officer, Taco Bell U.S.
  • 2005–06
    Chief operating officer, Yum! Brands
  • 2006–11
    President and chief concept officer, Taco Bell
  • 2011–14
    CEO, Taco Bell
  • 2015–Present
    CEO, Yum! Brands
  • Life Lessons
  • “Take the jobs no one else wants.”
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  • “Creating great experiences for employees is the key to delivering superb experiences for customers.”
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  • “Don’t use as much detergent as they tell you to use.”
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  • Age 2, with his parents, in Australia, 1959
  • “According to my mum, my preschool teacher said, ‘He may not be the brightest kid in the class, but if he finds his passion, he’s going to be very successful.’ So I said to Mum, ‘Was that a compliment?’ ”
  • “In a big company like Unilever, there are the growing brands and the ones everyone thinks are ready for the trash heap. If you can turn those around, you make a name for yourself.”
  • PepsiCo spun off KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell into Tricon Global Restaurants in 1997; Tricon was renamed Yum! Brands in 2002
  • “We came up with ‘Think Outside the Bun,’ repositioned our products, relaunched the brand, and went from seven years of decline to four and a half years of growth.”
  • “A lot of people were surprised, including me. I was like, ‘I don’t really know how to run restaurants. I know how to build brands.’ ”
  • “I almost became an army officer—I did the Army Cadets, which is similar to ROTC. I decided not to, because I couldn’t study business and serve in the reserves.”
    College graduation
  • With one of Taco Bell’s first franchisees, Dan Jones (left), at the brand’s 50th anniversary celebration, 2012
  • “We had an E. coli issue and then got sued for supposedly not having any beef in our meat. We ran an ad that said, ‘Thank you for suing us. Now we can tell our story.’ And when they withdrew the lawsuit, we ran, ‘Would it kill you to say you’re sorry?’ ”
  • “We have over 43,000 restaurants in 135 countries, and we open six new ones per day on average. We completed the separation of our China business on Oct. 31, creating two powerful, independent companies.”
  • With his wife, Carolyn, 2014