Wendy's Names Ex-McDonald's CMO Hassan to Lead Marketing Turnaround

The Hire

Wendy's (Nasdaq: WEN) has appointed Tariq Hassan to the newly created role of Chief Marketing and Customer Growth Officer, effective immediately, slotting a former McDonald's marketing chief into one of the QSR segment's most closely watched brand rebuilds. Hassan reports directly to President and CEO Bob Wright and joins the chain's Senior Leadership Team. Outgoing U.S. Chief Marketing Officer Lindsay Radkoski, who held the role since 2024, will remain through a transition period before departing the organization.

What Hassan Brings

Hassan spent more than three decades in global marketing and customer experience across restaurants, technology, and consumer brands. His most recent prominent stop was as Senior Vice President and U.S. Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer at McDonald's, where he helped push the chain's digital and loyalty infrastructure forward and anchored campaigns to cultural relevance and menu innovation — capabilities Wendy's has identified as critical to its own recovery. Before McDonald's, he held senior roles at major U.S. consumer brands and agencies, with a record of brand repositioning and data-driven customer relationship building.

Wright framed the appointment in explicit turnaround terms. "He has demonstrated the impact that highly effective marketing, digital activation, menu innovation and culturally relevant brand engagement can have on restaurant performance and customer loyalty," Wright said, adding that Hassan will be tasked with sourcing talent and building new organizational capabilities as Wendy's works to "recapture its position as the quality leader in the QSR industry."

Hassan, for his part, signaled that his initial focus will be on food storytelling and franchisee alignment. "My focus will be on reigniting that passionate connection with our brand to show up more powerfully in every experience, everywhere our fans meet us," he said. "I see enormous opportunity to reshape how we tell this story, starting with the food itself."

Turnaround Context

The hire lands as Wendy's, which operates and franchises more than 7,000 units worldwide, is navigating a period of elevated competitive pressure across the burger QSR daypart, with traffic softness industrywide squeezing same-store sales across the segment. Chains competing in the value-heavy fast-food corridor — including McDonald's, Restaurant Brands International's Burger King, and Jack in the Box — have all leaned on loyalty program enrollment and digital ordering mix to offset traffic headwinds, making Hassan's background in those disciplines directly relevant to Wendy's strategic priorities.

The creation of a broader "Customer Growth Officer" mandate, rather than a straight CMO replacement, signals that Wendy's is orienting marketing more explicitly around measurable unit-level outcomes — comp sales recovery, franchisee profitability, and digital channel penetration — rather than brand awareness alone. Radkoski's 15-year tenure at the company, acknowledged by Wright as a period of meaningful contribution, ends as the chain resets its marketing and franchise development strategy for what Wright has publicly described as a return to profitable growth.

For franchisees operating in a segment where royalty obligations and rising food and labor costs remain top concerns, the caliber of the incoming CMO carries direct unit-economics implications: marketing investment that moves comp sales meaningfully can shift the math on operator profitability even without a change in royalty rate or AUV structure.

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.