McDonald’s leadership map shows who runs restaurants, strategy, and supply chain

The top of the chain

If you work in a McDonald’s restaurant, the most useful leadership question is not who has the biggest title. It is who can actually move the policy that changes your shift, your labor budget, your menu board, or your equipment order.

At the top sits Chris Kempczinski, who became CEO in 2019 and chairman in 2024. McDonald’s says his job is not just to run the company but to keep its values embedded across the system. That matters because so much of what crew members and managers feel on the ground, from service standards to tech rollouts, flows from that top-level framework before it ever reaches a restaurant.

The board change that put Kempczinski in the combined chairman-and-CEO role also tells you something about how McDonald’s wants to govern itself now. Enrique “Rick” Hernandez, Jr. retired as non-executive chairman at the 2024 annual shareholders’ meeting, and Miles White became lead independent director. McDonald’s framed that shift as part of succession planning and a broader evolution in governance structure, which means the company is leaning into a more traditional model where the chief executive also sits at the center of board authority.

Who runs the U.S. business

For workers in the United States, the key name is Joe Erlinger, president of McDonald’s USA. That role is the clearest signal for where U.S. restaurant priorities, domestic operations, and market-level decisions are likely to be coordinated.

That matters because many of the issues crews care about are not global abstractions. Staffing pressure, scheduling standards, local restaurant operations, and U.S. customer expectations tend to land through the McDonald’s USA layer before they become visible in a store. When a headline sounds broad, the real impact often comes through the U.S. business unit, not directly from the CEO’s office.

McDonald’s structure also helps explain why some decisions feel corporate while others feel local. Franchise organizations and local operators still handle a lot of restaurant-level execution, but the U.S. president and the function leaders below him shape the rules, tools, and operating expectations those restaurants are asked to follow.

The executives behind daily restaurant life

The leadership page is especially useful because it names the people and functions that influence the day-to-day reality of restaurants. McDonald’s lists leaders for supply chain, impact, finance, people, marketing, restaurant experience, legal, strategy, and information technology.

That list is a map of where restaurant change really comes from:

• Supply chain is where food availability, packaging, equipment, and vendor issues can turn into real floor problems.
• People is the part to watch when labor policy, benefits, staffing, or workplace culture changes.
• Marketing and restaurant experience often shape menu launches, promotions, and how the customer-facing side of the job feels.
• Information technology matters when the company pushes digital tools, ordering systems, scheduling platforms, or other automation into stores.
• Strategy is where long-term shifts get set before they become visible in a restaurant memo.
• Legal can matter quickly when rules, disputes, or compliance questions reach the floor.

That is why a single McDonald’s headline can hit the restaurant in different ways. A menu change may involve marketing and restaurant experience. A labor or benefits announcement may run through people operations. A technology rollout may come from the CIO side and the transformation team. A supply-chain issue may show up as a product shortage, a broken piece of equipment, or a slower kitchen line.

Why the leadership map matters to crew members and managers

For crew members and managers, the value of this leadership map is practical: it helps you know where a decision originated, and what kind of pressure is behind it. A change that looks like a local store problem may actually have been set by a global function. A policy that seems like a corporate preference may have been shaped by U.S. operations, franchise realities, or systemwide strategy.

That matters in a company as large and franchise-heavy as McDonald’s, where the same rule can land differently in a company-operated restaurant, a franchised store, or a developmental licensed market. When standards shift, the question is often not whether the company can announce them. It is which layer of the business has the power to enforce them and how quickly the change reaches the floor.

The page also shows why employees should pay attention to more than the CEO. Kempczinski may be the public face of the company, but the actual levers of control are spread across U.S. operations and the functional leaders who translate strategy into restaurant reality. If you want to understand who can shape staffing, service standards, or workplace culture, the answer usually sits one layer below the headline.

The global structure behind the system

McDonald’s does not run as one flat company. Alongside McDonald’s USA, the leadership page names Manu Steijaert as president of International Operated Markets and Dario Baroni as president of International Developmental Licensed Markets. Those roles separate the company’s global business into distinct operating zones, which is important because decisions do not move the same way everywhere.

That split matters for workers and franchisees because it shows how the company balances direct control with local execution. In operated markets, McDonald’s has a more hands-on role. In developmental licensed markets, the company is working through a different business model, which can change how policy, growth, and execution are managed.

The company says Kempczinski is the architect of Accelerating the Arches, its growth strategy aimed at unlocking innovation across the McDonald’s system, including franchisees, global suppliers, and employees. That phrase is not just boardroom language. It tells you where the pressure is likely to go next: into restaurants, into technology, into supply chains, and into the systems that support labor and service.

What to watch next

For people inside McDonald’s, the leadership page is not just an org chart. It is a guide to where power sits when the company talks about growth, culture, staffing, and restaurant standards.

If the issue is U.S. operations, watch Joe Erlinger. If the issue is workforce policy, look to people leadership. If it is a tech change, follow information technology. If it is a restaurant standard, menu launch, or service shift, expect marketing and restaurant experience to be involved. And if the question is where the company is headed overall, the center of gravity is now clear: Kempczinski sits at the intersection of the board, the strategy, and the system that has to turn corporate decisions into a working restaurant.