After almost turning the job down, thinking a concept like Chipotle could never work, Gretchen Selfridge began managing the second Chipotle location in Denver in the early 90's. She has since risen in the ranks and now is responsible for half of locations across the country as Restaurant Support Officer. We think Gretchen is truly one of the best in the business.
From Fortune magazine:
From general manager to Chipotle's top female executive
by Caroline Fairchild @CFair1 NOVEMBER 4, 2014, 7:30 AM EST
from: http://fortune.com/2014/11/04/chipotle-top-female-executive/
In 1995, Gretchen Selfridge almost turned down the
opportunity to manage the second Chipotle in the country. Now, she runs around
850 of them.
As Chipotle’s restaurant support officer,
Selfridge role is similar to that of a co-COO. She is responsible for half of
the Chipotle’s across the country while another exec, Mike Duffy, manages the
other half. Nearly 20 years ago while visiting on tables at the now-closed
restaurant that she worked at in Aurora, Colo., one of her regular customers
asked her if she wanted to join the new venture. She said no way. There was no
chance a concept like Chipotle’s could survive, she thought.
“Back in 1990s, there wasn’t this category of
restaurants. You had fast food and you had full service,” Selfridge said in an
interview with Fortune. “I was working at a full-service restaurant. I didn’t
want to go work at something like a Taco Bell. I sort of turned my nose down on
the opportunity.”
Eventually, Selfridge took a meeting with Steve
Ells, Chipotle’s founder and co-CEO, to learn more. It didn’t take her long to
change her mind on the company. Calling Ells a “visionary,” Selfridge said she
didn’t care what kind of restaurant he was running; she just wanted to work for
him. The next year, she became the general manager of the second Chipotle CMG 0.09%
in the country in Denver.
A 31-year-old Selfridge realized quickly that
Chipotle wasn’t like any other restaurant. In her experience in the industry,
the only time a customer asked to see the manager at a restaurant was to complain
about the food or the experience. But at Chipotle, she had customer after
customer asking her how they could open up a franchise and when they planned on
opening up a location closer to their home.
Loyal patrons weren’t the only ones who wanted to get
a piece of Chipotle’s Mexican-style pie. At the end of 1997 with only a handful
of restaurants spread across the Colorado area, the company got a call from an
unexpected source: McDonald’s MCD -0.04% . The fast-food giant known for its golden
arches and greasy French fries wanted to invest. Once McDonald’s agreed to stay
out of Chipotle’s business and simply act as a lender, Ells and his team agreed
to take them on as a financial partner.
Chipotle eventually dissolved the partnership in
2006, but McDonald’s initial investment allowed the small burrito joint to set
its sights on larger growth. When Selfridge came in to run the second Chipotle,
Ells and his team thought they could eventually grow to a total of four
restaurants. By 1998, the company was opening 13 every year. Last year,
Chipotle opened up 185 new restaurants bringing the total to 1,700 stores and
raking in $3.21 billion in revenue.
“I remember thinking, ‘McDonald’s is a huge
company. What do they see in our just 13 stores?’ That’s when I realized that
this could be really big.”
Selfridge, armed with an associate’s degree in
business from a junior college, kept up with Chipotle’s exponential growth by
focusing on what she knew best: people. Moving up the corporate ladder from the
general manager of one store to restaurant support officer also responsible for
Chipotle’s compliance department, Selfridge talks about her growth as a leader
as if it were as organic as Chipotle’s growth itself.
“When you wear a lot of hats, you tend to figure things
out,” she said. “People come to you because you are a resource and you
understand how to do things.”
Yet despite Chipotle’s unprecedented success, the
company still experiences some growing pains. Namely, Selfridge says the
company’s dedication to only hiring the best people has made it difficult to
staff restaurants at the same rate as demand for new stores. Chipotle ranks
potential new hires on 13 innate characteristics like ambition, presentation
and attitude. Finding five managers and 30 employees that fit the bill for each
of those stores is a challenge.
“I can teach you how to roll a burrito. I can
teach you how to grill chicken. I can teach you how to manage a P&L,” says
Selfridge. “I can’t teach you to be happy, and smart and ambitious.”
Personally, Selfridge says her biggest challenge
has been believing each time that she could rise to the challenge of her new
role. She was never insecure, she said, but she never envisioned that she would
rise to the ranks in the food industry that she finds herself in now.
“I was put into a position that I thought I never
would be put into,” she said. “Somebody believed in me and gave me the
confidence. I have been given a great opportunity.”
