Papa John’s Founder Is at War With His Company

Editor’s Note: Sometimes the boss can put his company in a tough place. Here’s an overview of the types of key man risk.

“I am the American dream,” said John Schnatter. That was in 2014, when he was still running Papa John’s Pizza, the chain he started three decades earlier in the back of his father’s Indiana tavern and eventually turned into a $3.3 billion operation. Papa John’s was the official pizza of the NFL, and Schnatter was the company’s biggest cheerleader, always seen in a red-collared shirt, his face on each of the 350 million pizza boxes the chain used every year.