Top Franchise Leaders: Mark King, CEO of Taco Bell

Behind every impressive franchise brand is an equally impressive leader. Mark King is the CEO of everyone’s favorite Mexican food chain, Taco Bell, which also happens to be this year’s reigning champ on the Franchise 500.

While growing up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, King says he always had an unusually strong drive to succeed in business. “When I was younger, I'd shovel three or four houses on my sidewalk to make some money before school,” he said in a Taco Bell blog post. “I'd get up, start shoveling around 6:30 a.m. and head to school by 8:00 a.m. I quickly realized not a lot of kids liked getting up early. So, I got up even earlier. At 4:30 a.m. I started doing all the houses on the street and had money in my pocket, all because I decided to wake up early.”

After graduating from university in Wisconsin, King started a 34-year tenure with TaylorMade, one of the largest golf equipment manufacturers. He worked his way up from a territory sales representative to president in 1999 and CEO in 2002. During Mark’s tenure as president and CEO, TaylorMade became the leading and most profitable golf company in the world, growing to more than $1.85 billion in sales.

From there, King went on to become the president of the North American division of apparel juggernaut Adidas (which owned TaylorMade at the time). During his four-year stint, King helped Adidas become the fastest-growing sports brand in North America, doubling its market share. Perhaps most notably, he also helped secure the game-changing Yeezy deal with Ye (formerly Kanye West).

Needless to say, he made his impact on the world of athletic apparel. In 2017, Footwear News honored King with the number one spot on their Power 100 list, and in 2016, they named him “Person of the Year.” 

In 2019, King left the retail space and dove headfirst into the restaurant segment of the franchising industry by taking on the role of CEO at Taco Bell. Responsible for driving the overall brand strategy and performance of the nearly 8,000-unit business in the U.S. and internationally, King quickly found himself in a trial by fire after the COVID-19 pandemic hit. 

“The first thing I learned was that we as human beings can adapt,” King told Restaurant Spaces. “In a crisis, we seem to adapt better. I think there is something about human beings, that in crisis, they talk together and find ways to survive. We didn’t have an app, we did not have a loyalty program, we didn’t use aggregators to deliver. Things that people who did well during Covid had, we didn’t.” 

Leaning on his nearly 40-year career, King helped Taco Bell pivot — the quick-service chain rolled out its digital-first Go Mobile concept in 2020, as well as a contactless drive-thru prototype. 

One of the main lessons King says he has learned over his career is the power of ideas, specifically those coming from the employee level. At Adidas, King helped significantly boost employee retention to record-breaking heights, his website says. Now, Taco Bell’s Internal Incubator program invites employees across the company, including restaurant teams, to solve business challenges in unique ways.

“Traditionally, the executive team would get together, talk and make decisions,” King told Restaurant Spaces. “We decided not to do that. We decided to do an innovation academy and asked employees to help us shape the future. Amazing results came from this. Almost everything we are doing now came out of these different workshops. I think the coolest thing to happen at Taco Bell is the belief that the general employee has the opportunity to affect the future of Taco Bell.”

The strategy seems to be working. Taco Bell recently made headlines with the re-release of its Mexican Pizza, which helped grow loyalty registrations 15 times over and even helped Taco Bell increase its U.S. same-store sales by 8% in Q2 despite inflation. The brand announced it would be releasing a Mexican Pizza musical featuring Doja Cat and Dolly Parton exclusively on TikTok. 

“People ask me all the time if I eat Taco Bell as CEO,” King said on LinkedIn. “Of course I do, all the time! Our headquarters even has its own Taco Bell restaurant in the dining center and a Test Kitchen where we test all our products. I’m so proud of the food we serve and the creativity we come up with, whether it’s a long-time menu classic or a limited-time mashup.”

For those interested in hearing more from King, check out Taco Bell's Recipe for Restless Creativity podcast, where he shares his expertise and interviews other leaders in the franchising space.