Black To The Future: Meet Damola Adamolekun, P.F. Chang’s First Black CEO

0 Posted by - April 30, 2022 - BLACK MEN, Black To The Future, LATEST POSTS

By Victor Trammell

Photo credits: Natasha Mishano

Damola Adamolekun (pictured), 33, has been the CEO of the prominent Asian casual-dining restaurant business, which is located in the United States, since 2020. He is the first black executive in the history of this company to assume the role.

Damola has played a key role in the development of P.F. Chang’s, which is one of the biggest and most popular restaurant chains in the world, with locations in many countries. Instead of relying only on its strong brand, he feels that the corporation must accept change in order to prepare for the unpredictable future that lies ahead.

As the CEO of P.F. Chang’s, Damola concentrated on renovating the dining rooms and redesigning the menu items to better serve the customers. Besides that, he added delivery and to-go orders, which were once seen as unsuitable ventures for the brand. However, the business presently operates a number of modest fast-casual restaurants around the United States.

Even throughout the COVID-19 crisis, P.F. Chang’s maintained their position. Moreover, according to Technomic statistics on the Top 500 chains, Damola was responsible for the company’s sales growth in 2021, which was 3.1 percent higher than in 2020.

Damola is a partner at Paulson & Co., which in 2019 became one of the primary owners of P.F. Chang’s when the latter was purchased for $700 million. P.F. Chang’s is a chain of Chinese restaurants. Aside from that, he served as a member of the board of directors for International Tower Hill Mines LLC.

Adamolekun received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Brown University and his Master’s degree in business administration from Harvard Business School before starting his career.

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