Chipotle Mexican Grill’s chief operating officer Scott Boatwright has been named chief executive permanently after serving as interim since August.
Boatwright succeeds former CEO Brian Niccol, who departed for Starbucks three months ago.
The newest CEO first joined Chipotle (NYSE: CMG) in 2017 as COO and he previously spent 18 years at Arby’s Restaurant Group in several leadership positions, the last being senior vice president of operations responsible for over 1,700 Arby’s restaurants.
Chipotle counts over 3,600 restaurants with more than 125,000 employees as of September.
At the Newport Beach-based chain, Boatwright also “led the integration of new technology into restaurants [and] achieved industry-leading retention rates yielding impressive outcomes and improvements in throughput,” according to the company.
“The board overwhelmingly believes Scott will deliver on the key strategies in place and position the company for continued success,” Chairman Scott Maw said in a statement.
Shares were unchanged during midday trading at $58.72 apiece. With a market cap of $80 billion, Chipotle is the most valuable publicly traded company with headquarters in OC.
