Brinker International appointed Chris Caldwell as SVP, chief information officer effective Feb. 26, and announced that Mika Ware, the company’s VP of finance, investor relations, and restaurant development, will replace outgoing Chief Financial Officer Joe Taylor on June 27, according to a form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Monday.
Caldwell joins the company about five months after the departure of Pankaj Patra, a longtime Brinker executive and its most recent CIO, who left in October to take on the CIO role at Denny’s.
Before joining Brinker, Caldwell spent nearly a decade as CIO at KFC, according to his LinkedIn profile. In recent quarters, KFC parent Yum Brands oversaw the deployment of a wide range of technology in many KFC stores, including a form of artificial intelligence developed to act as a managerial assistant, and a large number of ordering kiosks.
Kevin Hochman, Brinker’s CEO, said in a press release that the brand umbrella was looking to replicate some of Yum’s tech moves, and said Caldwell “led a multi-unit restaurant digital transformation similar to what we are undergoing here at Brinker. I'm confident Chris will successfully accelerate our technology strategy to remove friction for both Guests and Team Members and move the needle on profitable growth.”
Caldwell isn’t the first exec with KFC experience to join Brinker in recent years. In late 2022, the company hired Jesse Johnson to oversee Chili’s marketing. Johnson was responsible for developing KFC’s 2018 “The Return of Colonel Sanders” campaign as an account director at Wieden + Kennedy.
On Feb. 22, Taylor informed the company of his intent to retire at the end of Brinker’s fiscal year in June, according to the 8-K, but will serve as an advisor to the company until August. Ware inherits the role with decades of experience, first joining the Brinker umbrella in 1988 as as an hourly employee at a Chili’s.
“[Ware] has excelled in every role at Brinker in her 35 years, both in the restaurants and in Brinker leadership. She has an incredible understanding of our key financial disciplines, opportunities, and operations, which made her the perfect choice for CFO to lead us in our next chapter,” Hochman said in a statement.
In recent months, Brinker’s core brands, Chili’s and Maggiano’s, have both seen negative traffic. On the company’s Q2 2024 earnings call at the end of January, Taylor said Chili’s traffic for the quarter was negative 0.6%, driven by “ the planned de-emphasis of virtual brands, including the discontinuation of Maggiano's Italian Classics, and materially reduced promotional activity for It's Just Wings.”
Maggiano’s likewise saw its traffic slide 4.2%, offset by a sharp increase in pricing year over year. In December, Brinker appointed a new brand president for Maggiano’s in an effort to steer the brand toward a return to growth.
