At McDonald's there are many successful women in key positions who drive the success of this iconic company.
Three women in particular - Wendy Lewis, Morgan Flatley and Melissa Kersey - are high-profile women in this iconic company and have significant responsibility through their roles.
Experienced leadership at McDonald's
Firstly, meet Wendy Lewis. Wendy is responsible for guiding McDonald's Global “Diversity IS Inclusion" efforts across all McDonald’s Corporation business functions as Global Chief Diversity Officer, and VP of Global Community Engagement.
Having helped develop a platform that enriches the organization’s history and culture of opportunity, growth and economic impact within diverse communities and strategic partnerships, Wendy has always made it clear that diversity is a crucial element of the McDonald’s Corporation and comments that “Diversity IS inclusion. We cannot be customer obsessed unless we have a global and diverse mindset.”
Under Wendy's leadership, McDonald’s has been widely recognized for its commitment to diversity, including winning the coveted Catalyst Award for its global women’s initiative; achieving a score of 100 in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index; being named in Fortune magazine’s “Top 50 Places for Minorities to Work”; Black Enterprise magazine’s “Top 40 Companies for Diversity”; and “Latina Style Magazine’s Best Companies for Latinas.”
Prior to joining McDonald’s, Wendy spent almost 30 years at Major League Baseball where she developed and implemented numerous innovative and successful metric-driven strategies and initiatives throughout the League and the sports industry. She designed MLB’s Diversity Economic Impact Engagement model to advance their workforce and supply chain engagement levels, league-wide. Wendy was also the creator of Major League Baseball’s Diversity Business Summit, a diversity employment and procurement conference and trade fair that transforms the workforce and supplier pipelines for Major League Baseball. The Summit brought together job seekers, business owners, emerging entrepreneurs and community leaders to network with MLB’s Commissioner, key executives and the heads of Human Resources and Procurement from all 30 Clubs, its Central Office, Advanced Media, the Network and Minor League Baseball. Wendy has been recognized as a pioneer and global leader and is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, and has been featured in various publications and is a highly regarded keynote speaker and subject matter expert. Wendy holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh and an MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
Communication is key at McDonald’s
As McDonald's Chief Marketing Officer, Morgan Flatley has a reputation for building iconic brands and leading integrated, award-winning marketing programs, as well as insight-driven innovations that respond to the evolving landscape of consumer needs. Her intense curiosity for consumer behavior and trends both within and outside the industry fuel her creative campaigns and innovations that reach the consumer where they are and with what they need. As a member of McDonald's U.S. leadership team, Morgan plays an important role in advancing the company’s growth strategies and overall brand positioning. She is responsible for leading, developing and overseeing execution of fully integrated marketing plans to drive and sustain long-term growth for McDonald’s USA, while expanding and strengthening partnerships externally and internally with franchisees, suppliers and agency partners.
Formerly at Pepsico before joining McDonald's, Morgan held a number of positions including as PepsiCo's Chief Marketing Officer for Global Nutrition, Morgan was responsible for accelerating growth for the company’s flagship nutrition brands - Quaker, Tropicana and Naked. Prior to this role, Morgan was Chief Marketing Officer for the iconic Gatorade brand during which time she led a customer-obsessed business strategy that helped return Gatorade to multi-year growth. Morgan was the architect behind some of Gatorade’s most celebrated marketing campaigns, including Cannes Gold Lion winner and epic farewell tribute to Derek Jeter, “Made in New York”, and CLIO Sports Grand Clio in Social Media for “Super Bowl Snapchat Dunk.” She has been widely recognized with awards across the industry including one of Adweek’s “30 Most Powerful Women in Sport”; Chicago Advertising Federation’s “2016 Advertising Woman of the Year”; and Adweek’s 2015 Grand Brand Genius, the publication’s most prestigious award. Morgan graduated from Dartmouth College and Harvard Business School, and sits on the board of both the Chicago Children’s Museum and the Women’s Justice Initiative for Guatemala that is dedicated to preventing and addressing gender-based violence. Morgan is a 2017 Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. She resides in Chicago with her husband and three children.
McDonald's Melissa Kersey, Chief People Officer
McDonald's relies on its people
Melissa Kersey is the Chief People Officer SVP for McDonald’s U.S.A. Melissa leads the efforts in the U.S. to evolve McDonald's People practices to further accelerate growth and drive meaningful results for its employees, business partners and the company. Prior to joining McDonald's, Melissa was Walmart's SVP of Global People where she helped to modernize their people function and practices. Melissa also spent more than 20 years in various roles and leadership positions in the retail and telecommunications industries.
Impressive women driving success at McDonald's
With these and further talented women at the helm of McDonald's Corporation, there are many pathways to success for ambitious career-minded women.
Research McDonald's current job vacancies and discover how you might thrive via a challenging career for one of the world's most iconic brands.
Disclosure: Where Women Work researches and publishes insightful evidence about how its paid member organizations support women's equality.