Speaker 1: When Jack hard Tongue joined Chipotle twenty years ago, it
Speaker 1: was far from the powerhouse it is today. Chipotle was
Speaker 1: a special brand. It was an unknown brand. It was
Speaker 1: very small, founded in by chef turned entrepreneur Steve Els.
Speaker 1: The company stood on the brink of the growth spurth
Speaker 1: that would create a category fast casual dining. It was
Speaker 1: really simple idea of Steve at It was, look, why
Speaker 1: is fast food crap? Why can't great food be done fast?
Speaker 1: I was there when there was a couple of dozen restaurants,
Speaker 1: and I would visit restaurants like this where Steve would
Speaker 1: go behind the line and he'd see somebody cutting an
Speaker 1: onion and saying, well, hold on, let me let me
Speaker 1: show you how to do it. Two decades later, Jack
Speaker 1: hard Tongue is still the chief financial officer of Chipotle.
Speaker 1: He's had a hand in just about every area of
Speaker 1: the operation. I feel like I've always been able to
Speaker 1: dabble in things outside of just financials. And while his
Speaker 1: central task is to create greater value for a chain
Speaker 1: that now has about three thousand restaurants, he insists on
Speaker 1: staying true to the values that have defined Chipotle from
Speaker 1: day one. I think I'm really open minded, but um,
Speaker 1: I really do want to protect the heritage of Chippotle
Speaker 1: and make sure that we don't lose the essence. It's
Speaker 1: a powerful blend a consistent mission that sustains the brand
Speaker 1: with a commitment to innovation that drives the business. Chipotle's
Speaker 1: future depends on investments that address both priorities. Jack har
Speaker 1: Tongue embraces that challenge. He's always had a passion for
Speaker 1: what we do next at our company because he's always
Speaker 1: been really a champion of growth. I've got to make
Speaker 1: sure that the financials, the balance sheet, the way we
Speaker 1: source food, the way that we provide food, the way
Speaker 1: that our business works needs to be strong so that
Speaker 1: we reach our full potential. I love working with people
Speaker 1: that can figure out how to thread the needle between
Speaker 1: the numbers and the purpose. Frankly, not everybody can do it,
Speaker 1: but luckily Jack does it really well, and you know,
Speaker 1: we're pretty fortunate to have him at our company. Chipotle's
Speaker 1: growth in the last five years has been nothing short
Speaker 1: of spectacular. Revenues have jumped nearly sev the company's market
Speaker 1: capitalization has more than quadrupled. All this despite a global
Speaker 1: pandemic that's disrupted the restaurant industry, and all this following
Speaker 1: a food safety crisis that caused sales at the company
Speaker 1: to created and forced to shake up in the c suite. Individually,
Speaker 1: the team was phenomenal. Individually, people were very talented, but
Speaker 1: it's almost like they didn't have the right people in
Speaker 1: the right places UM to handle how big the brand
Speaker 1: and the platform became. The enhanced food safety procedures, enhanced
Speaker 1: standards and training they really enhanced. Hence, the management team
Speaker 1: took marketing dollars, you know, transition them to more effective
Speaker 1: marketing brand building efforts with a big focus on reminded
Speaker 1: consumers of why they love Chipotle. The breakdown was the
Speaker 1: human capital. The breakdown was in culture, and that's what
Speaker 1: they've repaired and that's why they're coming back stronger. What
Speaker 1: have you learned in your CFO position going through those crises?
Speaker 1: What was what was the Which one was the most challenging?
Speaker 1: The food safety issue was the most challenging because we
Speaker 1: were alone in that one UM that was unique to Chipotle. UM.
Speaker 1: The pandemic is certainly a challenge, but everyone's in it together.
Speaker 1: The things that really got us through it is we
Speaker 1: stay true to our purpose. So during each of these challenges,
Speaker 1: we made sure we invested into things that made Chipotle
Speaker 1: specially invest in higher quality food, invest in our people,
Speaker 1: and then invest in our growth and invest in things
Speaker 1: like technology. We have a saying around there. I think
Speaker 1: it actually comes from west Point. You know, we will
Speaker 1: choose the harder right over the easy role. How do
Speaker 1: you and Jack work on things like that, those black
Speaker 1: Swan events, those things that can be you know, fundamentally
Speaker 1: changing for you as a company. When we are successful
Speaker 1: in focusing on the really important things that can strategically
Speaker 1: drive growth for us, they seem to be having resiliency
Speaker 1: in these unexpected events. And the other thing I think
Speaker 1: is to make sure you have a strong balance sheet
Speaker 1: to make sure you can weather the storm. And we've
Speaker 1: had a strong balance sheet. We've never had debt. We've
Speaker 1: always had more cast and the balance sheet than we
Speaker 1: need for our normal ongoing business. And that has come
Speaker 1: in you know great, you know really happy. Chipotle carries
Speaker 1: no long term debt and it's free cash flow almost
Speaker 1: tripled in When you think about the future, how do
Speaker 1: you take advantage of this and and what is the
Speaker 1: flexibility that that enables What it really affords us is
Speaker 1: we're going to be able to invest in our future
Speaker 1: no matter what. Like we accelerated are open, we accelerated
Speaker 1: our pursuit of new restaurant sites during the pandemic when
Speaker 1: some of the restaurant companies were laying off their development team.
Speaker 1: CHIPOTLEI not only expanded its footprint over the last two years,
Speaker 1: it reshaped its restaurants, ventured to drive through dining that
Speaker 1: began several years ago, became a thriving profit center when
Speaker 1: the pandemic struck. The thing that's changed the most is
Speaker 1: just most of our restaurants and I'll have a Chipot Lane.
Speaker 1: So three years ago we had maybe five or six
Speaker 1: Chipotle length and now we have over three fifty and
Speaker 1: eighty percent of our new openings have each polne. The
Speaker 1: sales and our Chipotlelane restaurants are higher, and our margins
Speaker 1: are higher too, because the digital orders are our highest
Speaker 1: margin transaction. And when you can serve the customer through
Speaker 1: the pot lane without the delivery fees that we pay
Speaker 1: in the customers paper, it's it's it's a great margin
Speaker 1: opportunity for us. The convenience of Chipot lanes contributed to
Speaker 1: soaring digital sales in there was little erosion in one
Speaker 1: even as in restaurants sales returned to eight of twenty
Speaker 1: nine levels. Meanwhile, membership and loyalty programs has boomed, giving
Speaker 1: Chipotle valuable insight into its customers omni channel preferences. Is
Speaker 1: what we've seen is that our digital customers they come
Speaker 1: to most often, and they spend the most each time
Speaker 1: they come. Customer loyalty could face a test if inflation
Speaker 1: continues to push higher. Chipotle hiked menu prices roughly. Jack
Speaker 1: Harton says, it's not just wages and food costs that
Speaker 1: are putting on the pressure. It's hitting everything. Sitting materials
Speaker 1: to for a restaurants or new restaurants are costing more
Speaker 1: as well. You guys have had incredible pricing power. Is
Speaker 1: there kind of a tipping point where it's like enough?
Speaker 1: We haven't seen it? U. Why is that, Jack? Well,
Speaker 1: part of it is um we've over the years been
Speaker 1: slow to raise prices. We've always tried not to go
Speaker 1: to the menu board to raise prices. Whenever we've had
Speaker 1: a challenge from a cost standpoint, we'll do other things
Speaker 1: to try to find efficiencies. Somewhere along the line. We
Speaker 1: raise prices in the second quarter of last year. We
Speaker 1: did that just to cover the cost of raising wages.
Speaker 1: We raise wages up the fifteen dollars. It was an
Speaker 1: average increase, and we raise prices just to cover the
Speaker 1: dollar costs of app So we didn't increase our margins.
Speaker 1: Our margins actually went down, but our profitability stayed the same.
Speaker 1: Our customers actually said, we really applaud what you're doing.
Speaker 1: We're fine with a four percent price increase, not a
Speaker 1: chi cambrito that's thirty cents, but the fact that you
Speaker 1: increase wages to that extent. We like to eat a morgo.
Speaker 1: CEO Brian Nicol has warned that Chipotle may raise prices
Speaker 1: again if cost pressures intensify. With the cost of eating
Speaker 1: out already at historic levels, consumers may just have to
Speaker 1: get used to paying more. The industry is used to
Speaker 1: tepid inflation, call it two you know um level inflation.
Speaker 1: They take you know, a little bit of priced offset
Speaker 1: it flows through and margins are just naturally restored. The
Speaker 1: fact of the matter is labor was the pressure point.
Speaker 1: So the industry today is definitely sitting on a high
Speaker 1: single digit price versus what is typically a low single
Speaker 1: digit price inflation or level of menu price increase in
Speaker 1: relative terms. Everyone has to do this. In fact, I
Speaker 1: would say, Carol, we we could be more patient than
Speaker 1: others because we own all of our restaurants. When you're
Speaker 1: a franchise organization, when you have franchise z s that
Speaker 1: have borrowed to invest in their business, they can't necessarily
Speaker 1: afford to let inflation eat away at their at their
Speaker 1: ability to pay the debt for very long. It is
Speaker 1: full speed ahead when it comes to store growth. Chipotle
Speaker 1: just up to its goal to seven thousand from six
Speaker 1: thousand restaurants in the US, thanks in large part to
Speaker 1: strong performance at seeing in smaller towns based on we're
Speaker 1: are already in more than a hundred of them. Based
Speaker 1: on the ones that we're in, based on the results
Speaker 1: so far, which are extraordinary, we think there is as
Speaker 1: many as almost a thousand more restaurants. And so even
Speaker 1: though you talk about a small town with you know,
Speaker 1: maybe twenty thirty thousand people, the sales volumes are almost
Speaker 1: the same as if you you know, we're in a
Speaker 1: city like Chicago or a Chicago suburb, but the investment
Speaker 1: costs are lower. The rents are certainly lower and the
Speaker 1: operating costs are lower, so you end up getting higher
Speaker 1: margins and higher returns. She probably reaps the full benefit
Speaker 1: of these return earned since it owns and operates all
Speaker 1: its stores, and advantage that's not lost on Wall Street.
Speaker 1: It's extremely unusual, and not only restaurants, but from a
Speaker 1: restaurant stock perspective, to have a large cap stock that's
Speaker 1: growing its unit level economic model, meaning the revenues are
Speaker 1: getting better and the margins are getting better as growth
Speaker 1: is accelerating. It's just it's like almost unheard of. So
Speaker 1: there's little reason for Chipotle to begin franchising in the
Speaker 1: United States, but for the chains forty five international restaurants,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence notes that partnering with local operators overseas might
Speaker 1: boost margins and accelerate expansion. We're open to the idea
Speaker 1: of some kind of franchise model. UM. You know, there
Speaker 1: are areas of the world where it's going to be
Speaker 1: harder for us to to own UM and to run
Speaker 1: the businesses ourselves. When the process of bringing our digital
Speaker 1: system to Europe that's going really, really well. We've also
Speaker 1: opened up some alternative sites. It gives us great optimism
Speaker 1: that international is going to be a growth vehicle for
Speaker 1: and you know, hopefully not for this computer. Like Chipotle's menu,
Speaker 1: Jack Hartungue's professional resume isn't patted out with exotic ingredients.
Speaker 1: After earning a bachelor's degree in NBA at Illinois State,
Speaker 1: he went straight to an accounting job at Cooper's and
Speaker 1: library his next stop eighteen years at McDonald's. They called
Speaker 1: me up and McDonald's was just a few miles down
Speaker 1: the road, and they said, this place is great. And
Speaker 1: what they what they told me was great about it
Speaker 1: was you started in one area, but then when a
Speaker 1: job opens up, they would post it and you can
Speaker 1: interview for it. So I felt, well, that sounds great.
Speaker 1: So I can learn a job and then if I'm
Speaker 1: looking for another opportunity, I can interview for it, and
Speaker 1: if I've done a good job, I'll get those opportunities,
Speaker 1: which is what happened. I am curious when you went
Speaker 1: from McDonald's to Chimpole. Were folks like Jack. Here, you've
Speaker 1: got the established company, You're going to a startup. I mean,
Speaker 1: did people think you were crazy? Yeah? I mean a
Speaker 1: lot of people thought I was crazy. Um. In fact,
Speaker 1: one memorable person was the CEO of McDonald's at the time,
Speaker 1: because I had a great career at McDonald's and the
Speaker 1: future looked really, really really good at a tootle. It
Speaker 1: was in its infancy and it and it had this
Speaker 1: vision for food, um that was like no other that
Speaker 1: I've seen. How much of it was but Dowald, Oh, Chipotle,
Speaker 1: how much of it was? Alright, Jack, keep an eyeing
Speaker 1: these guys, you know, That's how it started. Okay, And
Speaker 1: it wasn't keep an eye on it, but it was more. Um,
Speaker 1: their food culture was very advanced, their business culture was not,
Speaker 1: and so it was more of bringing some of your
Speaker 1: experience to Chipotle just so you can get them on
Speaker 1: a you know, on a on a stronger track. Once
Speaker 1: I got into Schopotle, the environment and I realized, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I want to be part of this. There
Speaker 1: was a passion about what we were doing. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't a finance job anymore. It was a job that
Speaker 1: was really changing food culture in this country. Um, And
Speaker 1: it was it was a mission and it was a
Speaker 1: mission that I that I totally bought into. The Chipotle's
Speaker 1: culture and mission have long differentiated it as a place
Speaker 1: to eat. With restaurants competing fiercely for employees in the
Speaker 1: wake of the pandemic, companies are going to have to
Speaker 1: show that they are great places to work as well.
Speaker 1: It's not just about that person coming back to work
Speaker 1: in the restaurant. They're going to come back, but they're
Speaker 1: not going to come back and work the way they
Speaker 1: did before. I think that the companies that win are
Speaker 1: those that are investing in their employees, their teams, that
Speaker 1: are developing a strong culture that people want to be
Speaker 1: a part of. The real win on a micro level
Speaker 1: is if restaurants can figure out how to make that
Speaker 1: employee work better and more efficiently, but in a way
Speaker 1: that makes them more satisfied. At this new location just
Speaker 1: outside Chicago, Jack hartone, tell me what it will take
Speaker 1: to build a workforce to meet Chipotley's goals. You've got
Speaker 1: to start with attractive wages, but then you've got to
Speaker 1: go away beyond that. You've got to offer developmental opportunities,
Speaker 1: promotional opportunities. We have a hundred thousand employees. As we
Speaker 1: grow from three thousand restaurants to seven thousand restaurants, we're
Speaker 1: gonna need two hundred or two or fifty thousand employees.
Speaker 1: So our feature depends on hiring great crew today that
Speaker 1: will be great managers and that your turn, double the locations,
Speaker 1: double the staff. And along with investing in people, Chipotle
Speaker 1: plans to invest in technology to support them. There is
Speaker 1: so much still that can be done with artificial intelligence robotics.
Speaker 1: When you think about our system, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of processes that frankly people don't love doing. Cutting and
Speaker 1: couring avocados in the restaurant. Not a fun job, very repetitive,
Speaker 1: you know. I think there's a way where we could
Speaker 1: use robotics to help us do that. And then as
Speaker 1: you think about artificial intelligence, we could be better at
Speaker 1: figure out how many avocados that we have to cut
Speaker 1: in court today so that we never run out of
Speaker 1: backamore lee throughout the day. As digital orders have surged,
Speaker 1: Chipotle has adapted its processes. The most dramatic change has
Speaker 1: been the addition of a second make line. This is
Speaker 1: very familiar to customers, our frontline, and this is what
Speaker 1: for the first you know, call it eighteen years at
Speaker 1: coleg this was you come into pole along the line,
Speaker 1: you interact with the crew, and you customize your mail.
Speaker 1: We've got this separate makeline and it's digitized, and so
Speaker 1: the orders come in and they're they're really kind of
Speaker 1: stage so that if you say at noon, I want
Speaker 1: to come in at one o'clock, we hold that order
Speaker 1: and we will send it to the crew like it
Speaker 1: maybe ten to one, so it's already right when you
Speaker 1: pull up your car. How do you manage these kind
Speaker 1: of two different staffing needs right and making sure you
Speaker 1: have the right amount of people at the at the
Speaker 1: right right time. We spend a lot of time projecting
Speaker 1: sales of a lot of it is you know, it's
Speaker 1: part art, part science. We're trying to bring more science
Speaker 1: and more AI into it because if you get the
Speaker 1: right sales projection, then you know exactly what you're saying,
Speaker 1: what you're staffing needs to be. So if you get
Speaker 1: the sales right, you can get the entire restaurant staffed
Speaker 1: perfectly with just a couple of people. Our our average
Speaker 1: restaurant now does about um over a million dollars per
Speaker 1: restaurant in digital sales. Data science meets culinary art. In
Speaker 1: Chipotle's commitment to menu innovation but releasing several new items
Speaker 1: each year, management hopes to boost same store sales. It
Speaker 1: seems to be working, but it's more complicated than it looks.
Speaker 1: The most important thing is to make sure that the
Speaker 1: economics work, meaning when you bring something new UM, does
Speaker 1: it bring in additional customers? Does that bring existing customers
Speaker 1: more often? There's always going to be trade off from
Speaker 1: you know, one menu item to another UM, and there
Speaker 1: could be economic either advantages or disadvantages. So we just
Speaker 1: want to understand that. You know, when a customer comes in,
Speaker 1: if they're trading from a high mar den itum to
Speaker 1: lomar den it um, that's gonna be a loser for us.
Speaker 1: And any new offering must meet Chipotle's rigorous sourcing standards.
Speaker 1: It will take us a year and a half up
Speaker 1: from the time that we are are experimenting in the
Speaker 1: test kitchen. Two. We'll put it into a few restaurants
Speaker 1: to see how does it work operationally and do customers
Speaker 1: like it? But it'll take us a year and a
Speaker 1: half because we've then got to build up the supply chain.
Speaker 1: It's a challenge, but we take our time and we're
Speaker 1: not going to roll it out before it's ready. Jack
Speaker 1: Harton clearly places a high value on the customer experience,
Speaker 1: and the experience of those who work at Chipotle restaurant.
Speaker 1: He's a people person and a family man with five
Speaker 1: children and ten grandchildren. Even his favorite hobby brings family
Speaker 1: into play. It's a passion for collecting and restoring classic cars.
Speaker 1: I drive here very conservatively, so I'm not like ripping
Speaker 1: down the highway or anything. But these are cars that
Speaker 1: I really cared about and really admired and aspired to
Speaker 1: when I was young, and so I still love these cars.
Speaker 1: There's a bonding that goes on as well. One of
Speaker 1: my sons is a mechanic, so he was a mechanic
Speaker 1: for tesla Um and he loves cars, and so we
Speaker 1: spend time to car shows together. We'll go to auctions
Speaker 1: and look for cars um, and so we have a
Speaker 1: great time. And he knows how to fix the cars,
Speaker 1: and I know how to drive the cars, and so
Speaker 1: that's kind of the partnership that we have. We have
Speaker 1: a great time together. Essential pillar of Chipotle's business has
Speaker 1: always been a commitment to fresh food and support of
Speaker 1: sustainable agriculture. From responsibly raised meat to local and organic produce,
Speaker 1: the company has crafted a supply chain carefully over decades.
Speaker 1: Every company is facing supply change, leunges. Chippotle has a
Speaker 1: great infrastructure. They have a sophisticated team. They have relationships
Speaker 1: with their suppliers, a lot of whom are local, and
Speaker 1: a lot who have gotten to know Jack hard Tongue.
Speaker 1: He's done much more to build those relationships than just
Speaker 1: sign checks. Within my first year, I was spending time
Speaker 1: on hog farms, cilantro farms. Believe it or not, I was.
Speaker 1: I drove a combine, you know that's like the size
Speaker 1: of this restaurant, um to harvest rice, organic rice, and
Speaker 1: these are things that they had. They had a lasting
Speaker 1: impression on me because when I would go back to
Speaker 1: my office and I would be working on spreadsheets and
Speaker 1: financial analysis, I saw how the hogs were raised, and
Speaker 1: I saw how they were raised conventionally versus with our farmers,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I've got to make sure that our
Speaker 1: financials and all everything we spend money on needs to
Speaker 1: be thoughtful so that we can invest in the better
Speaker 1: way raising food. It's more expensive to buy this food.
Speaker 1: I was trying to make sure that the economic model
Speaker 1: supported in testing in this food and not through higher
Speaker 1: menu prices. Jack is bought into our purpose and cultivating
Speaker 1: a better world. One of those key planks is sustainability
Speaker 1: and doing the right thing for the planet. And as
Speaker 1: a result, he's all on board with investing in it
Speaker 1: and understanding the implications on the business and then obviously
Speaker 1: our purpose. We know it matters. We know it matters
Speaker 1: not just to our customers, to our crew as well.
Speaker 1: We do the right things. We do what's right for people.
Speaker 1: We do it's right for the farmers, we do it's
Speaker 1: right for the environment. For the last twenty years at Chipotle,
Speaker 1: Jack hard Tongue has made strategic decisions based on what matters,
Speaker 1: even in times of turmoil in crisis. Looking back, more
Speaker 1: often than not, it's paid off. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: know what he sees when he looks ahead, what's the
Speaker 1: opportunity for Chipotle and the next ten years. It excites
Speaker 1: you the most, well, I think the most exciting thing
Speaker 1: is that we're not even halfway to our potential um
Speaker 1: in the US. So you know, when I joined the
Speaker 1: company with a few hundred restaurants and we're talking about
Speaker 1: a thousand, maybe two thousand. Here we are three thousand,
Speaker 1: talking about seven, and I believe as we approach seven
Speaker 1: that number is going to be higher, a lot higher.
Speaker 1: Well I don't know how much higher, but for sure
Speaker 1: it's going to go up. And international we're just scratching
Speaker 1: the surface. And we've been very responsible in international where
Speaker 1: we've taken the same food ethos we've owned the restaurants
Speaker 1: so far, and so it's been a very slow let's
Speaker 1: make sure we get this right. You know, sometimes you
Speaker 1: have to go slow before you go fast, and that's
Speaker 1: kind of been our approach. We've gone slow, and now
Speaker 1: we're positioning ourselves too, I think in the not to
Speaker 1: Distan future go fast into international. So those are two
Speaker 1: things that excite me the most. All Right, what's the
Speaker 1: challenge for the next ten years that is on your
Speaker 1: mind the most, that maybe even keeps you up at night? People, Um,
Speaker 1: when we run all of our restaurants like we do today, Um,
Speaker 1: we have around a hundred thousand employees. As we grow,
Speaker 1: we're gonna need more employees. Uh. We promoted nineteen thousand
Speaker 1: people last year of our of our promotions were in house.
Speaker 1: So we always have to be on our game in
Speaker 1: terms of hiring great people that believe in Chipotle and
Speaker 1: our purpose today, that have the desire to learn how
Speaker 1: to cook, learn how to run a business, learn how
Speaker 1: to lead people. If we do a great job with that,
Speaker 1: the future only gets brighter. So we're in great shape
Speaker 1: from with people standpoint. But that's something that I'll always
Speaker 1: worry about. Are we are we hiring and developing the
Speaker 1: right if you don't want to be losing people. If
Speaker 1: we lose people, then we might have to resort to franchising.
Speaker 1: And it's hard to follow a purpose during tough times
Speaker 1: like during a pandemic. It's hard to invest in things
Speaker 1: like food and people you win margins or under pressure.
Speaker 1: When you own your own restaurants, you can make those investors.
Speaker 1: How do you see your role as CFO changing in
Speaker 1: the next ten years? Safe to say it's changed a
Speaker 1: lot in the past ten years. How about the next
Speaker 1: ten it has? You know, I think it'll just evolve
Speaker 1: with the challenges. I mean again, I'm I'm already fortunate
Speaker 1: that I've been able to get involved in real estate
Speaker 1: and supply chain. I spend time in a restaurant, spend
Speaker 1: time and suppliers, um, you know, spend time international as well,
Speaker 1: So I always I already get to spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time in a lot of these areas I think
Speaker 1: UM in terms of evolution, UM, it's probably more a
Speaker 1: matter of the folks on my team, some of which
Speaker 1: are new the fole in last few years, some of
Speaker 1: which have done with us for a long time, to
Speaker 1: help them rise up so they can take on bigger
Speaker 1: responsibility and we become a bigger company. Everybody in the
Speaker 1: company will need to step up and take on bigger responsibility,
Speaker 1: so my main goal will be to make sure that
Speaker 1: they're ready to take those on. What's the skill set
Speaker 1: that you think every CFO should be acquiring in this environment?
Speaker 1: I think being digital savvy UM is probably the most
Speaker 1: important thing. Trying to stay you know, keep up or
Speaker 1: even stay ahead of where technology is going, not just
Speaker 1: in the next five year, has been next center fifteen years.
Speaker 1: That's the most critical for See. What's the best advice
Speaker 1: for the future that you'd give to somebody, a person
Speaker 1: who just got promoted to CFO today, I would say,
Speaker 1: be really really curious, UM, try to learn as much
Speaker 1: as you can about every part of the business. Every
Speaker 1: CFO knows how to read financial statements and go through
Speaker 1: what a CFO is supposed to do. But I think
Speaker 1: what you have to do is put those aside at
Speaker 1: some point, go spend time in your business. In our case,
Speaker 1: spend time in restaurants, spend time with suppliers. I think,
Speaker 1: get to know how other people within the business, what
Speaker 1: their challenges are, what their opportunities are, um what really
Speaker 1: makes the customer care about your brand or your business.
Speaker 1: And I think the more you do that, when you
Speaker 1: go back to the spreadsheets, you're going to be thinking
Speaker 1: about things from a different sample. Your priorities might change
Speaker 1: a little bit right, and it might change how you
Speaker 1: make investments to make sure that the customer experience is
Speaker 1: better next time rather than the margin is better. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you invest in the customer in a way where
Speaker 1: they become loyal to your customer, the margins will come
Speaker 1: heartfelt and hands on. Jack hard Tongue has put Chipotle
Speaker 1: in position to go forward by always making sure the
Speaker 1: business goes back to the start and stays true to
Speaker 1: its roots. That's what makes him Chippotle's chief future officer.
Speaker 1: I'm Carol Masser. This is Bloomberg