-3.png)
David Gibbs is Chief Executive Officer of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE: YUM), a role he assumed January 1, 2020. He is also a member of the Company’s Board of Directors. Yum! Brands is the world’s largest restaurant company by number of system units with over 50,000 restaurants in more than 150 countries and territories. Its restaurant brands – KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell – are global leaders of the chicken, pizza and Mexican-style food categories. The Company’s family of brands also includes The Habit Burger Grill, a fast-casual restaurant concept specializing in made-to-order chargrilled burgers, sandwiches and more.
As Yum! Brands CEO, Gibbs leads the Company’s overarching strategies, structure, people development and culture that will drive global growth, sales and profitability at all Yum! franchise businesses worldwide. Yum! functional leaders and global brand division CEOs report to Gibbs.
Since joining the Company in 1989, Gibbs has held a variety of leadership roles at the KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell brands, including global strategy, finance, general management, operations and real estate. Previously, Gibbs served as Yum! Brands President and Chief Operating Officer, where he had global operating leadership of the KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell divisions, with the respective leaders reporting to him. Prior to this, Gibbs served as Yum! Brands President and Chief Financial Officer from 2016 to 2019 and was the chief architect of Yum! Brands’ financial, refranchising and restaurant development strategy to transform the Company into a capital-light, pure-play franchisor. He also played a lead role in the 2016 spinoff of Yum China Holdings, Inc.
Gibbs also previously served as CEO of the global Pizza Hut Division, and President and CFO of Yum! Restaurants International, responsible for growing KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell outside the U.S. and China, along with having general management responsibility for several international markets. He also served as Yum! Chief Strategy Officer during which time he revamped Yum! Brands’ global restaurant operations model, as Pizza Hut U.S. CFO and in various real estate and restaurant development leadership roles in KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.
Before joining Yum!, Gibbs worked for Salomon Brothers in New York City. Gibbs holds an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and a BS in Mathematical Science from Johns Hopkins University.