Principal Program Lead, Restaurant Excellence Strategy and Planning

How We Work At Chick-fil-A Chick-fil-A,  Inc. ('Chick-fil-A' or 'the Company') Staff members play a vital role in achieving our strategic goals by developing their skills,  fostering inclusive teamwork,  and embracing innovation. All Staff are expected to contribute to a compelling future by inspiring and motivating those around them. Growth and development are essential at Chick-fil-A. We want Staff to seek new perspectives and adopt new methods to drive continuous improvement and adaptation to evolving business needs. Lastly,  we ask Staff to seek wisdom,  expect the best,  accept responsibility,  respond with courage,  and think others first. Our Flexible Futures Model offers a healthy mix of working in person (currently a minimum of 8-10 days per month) and virtually,  strengthening key elements of the Chick-fil-A culture by fostering collaboration and community.

The Principal Program Lead, Strategy & Planning ( S&P ) role serves as a strategic leader for the Restaurant Excellence Team, responsible for the cross-functional collection, synthesis, and coordination of operational performance insights across various teams supporting Restaurant excellence (e.g., Food Safety, Quality, Hospitality, Customer Experience) to identify critical connections and their implications. This role will be responsible for developing a collective “one voice” perspective from these operational performance insights and then taking them to and influencing key groups responsible for impacting in-Restaurant execution (e.g., RE Consulting, Regions, Launch Support, etc.).  By pulling up to a holistic view, this role architects and maintains a data-informed strategic roadmap and portfolio of initiatives which provides recommendations on operational improvements needed to fuel performance. The S&P role will work collaboratively within our team and with partners outside our team to influence the business on strategic decisions as well as manage multiple projects simultaneously, ensuring that milestones and deliverables are met.

Cross-Functional Alignment: Facilitate the necessary touch-points and establish the linkages and processes needed between various cross-functional teams to ensure there is clarity and alignment on how to support and achieve the collective desired outcomes of Restaurant excellence across the business. Operational Intelligence Leadership: Make recommendations for where additional visibility into operational performance is needed, partnering with various groups to develop the appropriate technology or tools, and then partnering to create the appropriate engagement mechanism (e.g., reporting, scorecards, gamification, etc.) to influence changes in the Restaurant.  Strategic Initiatives and R&D: Develop, support, recommend or execute high-impact strategies and initiatives (e.g., Restaurant Excellence award) that benefit Restaurant excellence and ensure a remarkable Customer Experience. This includes building business cases to lead early-stage research and development (R&D) of future operational capabilities to understand readiness, value, and potential impact. Use learnings and insights from R&D to build advocacy and organizational support to pursue further in-field testing led by other project teams (e.g., Field Insights & Technology, Quality & Customer Care, Digital Technology & Transformation, Hospitality). Field Strategy Alignment: Build and maintain partnership with the Field Effectiveness team to provide a data-informed perspective on the most critical Restaurant excellence opportunities. Ensure that the Restaurant Excellence Roadmap is aligned with Field Consulting priorities to maximize the value provided to Operators.  Strategic Planning & Prioritization: Drive the focus of the Restaurant Excellence Team by facilitating the development of annual and multi-year strategic plans and roadmaps (1, 3, and 5-year). This role is responsible for providing data-driven and informed