Steve Easterbrook

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Business executive Steve Easterbrook, 2016.

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Steve Easterbrookis an English-born business executive and accountant best known for reinvigorating McDonald’s Corporation, beginning in March 2015. Easterbrook, a long-time McDonald’s executive, briefly helmed a handful of other fast-food chains before rising to the position of president and CEO of McDonald’s.

Easterbrook attended Watford Grammar School for Boys before receiving an undergraduate degree in natural sciences from St. Chad’s College, Durham University, where he also played on the school’s cricket team. He began his career as an accountant at the auditing and professional services firm Price Waterhouse.

Easterbrook joined McDonald’s in 1993 as a financial reporting manager in London. He rose to become the executive in charge of all the McDonald’s restaurants in the company’s southern U.K. territory. In early 2006 he was given the responsibility of managing all U.K. operations. Less than a year later, his duties expanded to the whole of northern Europe (and the territory’s approximately 1,800 restaurants). Easterbrook remained in that position for almost four years and briefly held several senior executive positions, but he left the company in 2011 to serve as the chief executive of the PizzaExpress (2011–12) and Wagamama (2012–13) restaurant chains. He returned to McDonald’s in 2013 to assume the position of senior executive vice president and chief brand officer. From 2008 he also served as a visiting fellow at the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation.

Easterbrook was installed as the president and CEO of McDonald’s in March 2015 to replace outgoing CEO Don Thompson. The period was a critical time for McDonald’s, which in 2014 had faced a 15 percent shortfall in profits and a loss of market share to other fast-food hamburger chains, such as Five Guys and Shake Shack.

Easterbrook took steps to increase the efficiency of an organization that spanned some 36,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries. His restructuring plan, the largest in the company’s history, involved, among other things, removing redundant managerial and store operations positions worldwide. Easterbrook also sought to renew the company’s collective focus on the needs and desires of the customer and to better serve the unique requirements of different corporate territories. In China, where a scandal in 2014 involving tainted meat had tarnished the brand, Easterbrook aimed to improve the public’s perception of the food being served. He oversaw the elimination of several menu items and the rollout of new products, such as customized hamburgers in Australia and in the U.S., and he brought an even greater emphasis on convenience, including the expansion of dual-lane drive-throughs at restaurants and highly profitable all-day breakfast offerings in the U.S.

Many of Easterbrook’s changes produced positive results. The company’s profit margin rose from 13.62 percent in March 2015 to more than 25 percent by the close of that year, wiping out the earlier decline. Success also continued into the following year, with sales at U.S. establishments rising 5.7 percent during the first part of 2016. In 2017 the company announced that it would be making its hamburgers with fresh beef, rather than frozen beef, a move believed to bring greater appeal to the brand.

McDonald’s announced in November 2019 that Easterbrook had been fired after it was revealed that he had had an affair with an employee. Chris Kempczinski, who served as president of McDonald’s USA, immediately replaced Easterbrook. Subsequent investigation revealed that Easterbrook had had affairs with additional subordinates during his tenure, and McDonald’s announced in December 2021 that it had settled a lawsuit with Easterbrook to reclaim the $105 million severance package it had granted to him.