Three Hires, One Mandate
Einstein Bros. Bagels, the 700-unit fast-casual bagel chain operating under the Panera Brands umbrella, has appointed Patrick Waldron as chief development officer, Will Evans as chief financial officer, and Shawna Fehrman-Lee as chief people officer. The trio lands as the Denver-based chain plots 300 net-new bakery openings over the next three years — a unit-growth trajectory that would push the brand past the 1,000-location mark ahead of its self-imposed 2030 deadline.
CEO Jessica DePetro framed the additions as depth-building rather than gap-filling. "Their complementary expertise strengthens an already exceptional leadership team and gives us the depth to grow thoughtfully, invest in our teams and bring Einstein Bros. to more communities nationwide," she said.
The Executives
Waldron arrives with more than 15 years in high-velocity real estate and retail development, including stints at Amazon, Whole Foods Market, and JLL. His most recent role placed him inside Amazon's Worldwide Grocery business, where he helped stand up the Amazon Fresh real estate organization and supported the opening of more than 60 Amazon Fresh stores. At Einstein Bros., he will lead site selection, lease negotiations, and development-process modernization as the chain scales toward four digits in unit count — a task that will require area development infrastructure capable of absorbing roughly 100 openings per year.
Evans brings a multi-sector financial résumé: he started in public accounting at EY, then joined Zoës Kitchen through its IPO process, spent three years on the private-equity side investing in restaurant concepts, and most recently served as CFO at La Colombe and Alvarado Restaurant Nation. His mandate at Einstein Bros. centers on building the financial controls and analytics needed to sustain disciplined unit growth without sacrificing store-level returns — a familiar tension in any brand scaling past 700 locations.
Fehrman-Lee spent nearly a decade at HelloFresh as global vice president of people, overseeing talent across 16 international markets and a workforce exceeding 20,000 employees. Rapid unit expansion compounds labor complexity; her appointment signals that Einstein Bros. is treating people infrastructure as a prerequisite for hitting its development targets rather than a trailing priority.
Market Context
The hirings arrive as the U.S. bagel market is valued at approximately $5.8 billion, a segment still fragmented enough to reward a scaled operator with national brand equity. Einstein Bros. holds the top retail position in the category, a status that puts it in a strong negotiating posture with landlords filling breakfast-daypart anchor slots in strip and lifestyle centers — real estate that has become more competitive as QSR and fast-casual breakfast concepts continue to expand aggressively.
As part of Panera Brands — which also operates Panera Bread and Caribou Coffee — Einstein Bros. can leverage shared franchise development and supply-chain infrastructure across the portfolio, a structural advantage when building out a CDO function and standardizing new-unit economics at scale. Whether the 300-unit, three-year pipeline leans on franchised area development agreements or company-operated builds will be a key variable shaping Evans's financial modeling from day one.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
