Cheryl Bachelder

My purpose is: Develop purpose-driven leaders who exhibit competence and character in all aspects of their lives.

Cheryl A. Bachelder is a passionate restaurant industry executive serving as the CEO Popeyes® Louisiana Kitchen, Inc. Cheryl is known for her crisp strategic thinking, franchisee-focused approach, superior financial performance and the development of outstanding leaders and teams.

Cheryl joined Popeyes, Louisiana Kitchen, Inc. in November 2007 after serving as an active member of the Board for a year. She brings more than 35 years of experience in brand building, operations and public-company management at companies like Yum Brands, Domino’s Pizza, RJR Nabisco, The Gillette Company and The Procter & Gamble Company.

At Popeyes, Cheryl promptly established a Road Map for Results that focused on four key tenets of growing a restaurant chain: build a distinctive brand, run great restaurants, grow restaurant profits and ramp up new unit growth. This strategic framework led to market share gains of six points, improved guest ratings and increased restaurant margins (400 basis points in five years). The improvement in restaurant performance has led franchisees to remodel the system and accelerate new unit growth both in the U.S. and abroad. In the last six years the enterprise market cap has grown from $300 million to over $1 billion. At fiscal year-end 2013 Popeyes system-wide revenues were $2.4 billion. These revenues are generated by over 2,248 restaurants operated by 338 franchisees and more than 60,000 restaurant employees in the United States, three territories and 27 foreign countries.

Ms. Bachelder has created a culture based on the Popeyes Purpose: to inspire servant leaders to achieve superior results. This purpose is expressed in the six principles of how we work together. The Popeyes team focus is to serve the franchise owners well; together we pursuing a bold ambition for the enterprise. This has produced exceptional performance results. In March 2015, Ms. Bachelder published a book chronicling the tenets of the Popeyes turnaround, entitled Dare to Serve – How to drive superior results by serving others.

In 2012, Cheryl was recognized as Leader of the Year by the Women’s Foodservice Forum and received the highest industry award, the Silver Plate, for the quick service restaurant sector, presented by the International Food Manufacturer’s Association. Cheryl was also recognized as a 2012 Nation’s Restaurant News’ Golden Chain Award recipient. The Wall Street Journal recently featured a full page story on the Popeyes turnaround (March 10, 2014).

She is married thirty three years to Chris Bachelder and they have three grown daughters.