How a more diverse C-suite is helping restaurants

How are restaurants making their C-suites more diverse? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Therese Gearhart, the president and CEO of the Women’s Foodservice Forum. WFF’s leadership conference is coming up next week, and we figured it’d be a great time to check in on the industry’s track record of hiring women into leadership roles. The answer is that it’s doing better. Several restaurant chains, including Denny’s and Dutch Bros, have recently hired women to be their CEOs. Three restaurant chains in just the last day hired women to be CEOs: Taco John’s (Heather Neary), Smashburger (Denise Nelsen) and Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream (Jennifer Schuler). Therese discusses these issues and talks about how restaurants are doing getting people into management roles. We talk about why it’s financially beneficial for restaurants to do these things. We talk about the upcoming conference, and Therese gives tips for up-and-coming employees to move up in the business and how companies can create more inclusive working environments. We’re talking women in restaurants on A Deeper Dive, so please check it out.