Taco Bell honors 30 young leaders across restaurants and field roles
Taco Bell’s 2023 list spotlights 30 workers under 30, from crew to field leaders, and maps the chain’s preferred path to promotion.
Taco Bell’s 2023 30 Under 30 list honors 30 team members, Live Más Scholars, general managers and above-restaurant leaders, all under age 30. For workers on the floor, the list matters because it shows which careers the chain is willing to spotlight: not just executives, but people inside restaurants and out in the field.
The company says the program was created to celebrate champions in its restaurants and field who serve as brand ambassadors and “living examples” of Taco Bell culture. Taco Bell used nearly the same language in 2021, when it said the list was meant to give a “big shout-out” to leaders who are its “biggest culture champions.” The categories have stayed consistent, and Taco Bell published 30 Under 30 lists in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, which makes the program look less like a one-off marketing burst and more like a recurring talent filter.
That mix of honorees tells restaurant workers something specific about the ladder inside the brand. Taco Bell is not only praising tenure or store sales. It is elevating frontline team members, scholarship recipients, general managers and above-restaurant leaders together, which suggests the company wants ambitious crew members and shift managers to see a path from the store into broader leadership roles. A 2025 Taco Bell LinkedIn post put that culture message bluntly: “At Taco Bell, we want restaurant teams to say, ‘This is the best job.’” The post also pointed to Global Chief People & Culture Officer Jamie Harrison (Voss).
The scholarship piece is part of that pipeline. Taco Bell launched the Live Más Scholarship in 2015, and the Taco Bell Foundation said in March 2016 that its first 40 recipients would split $200,000 in post-high-school scholarships. The program later scaled up to more than $8 million in 2022 and more than $10 million in 2023, before the 10th annual round opened in November 2024 with up to $14 million on the table. By pairing scholarship winners with restaurant and field leaders in the same recognition program, Taco Bell is showing which early-career moves it rewards: operational credibility, field experience and the ability to represent the brand beyond a single store.
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