Taco Bell is getting a new CEO.
Yum Foods announced Thursday that Sean Tresvant, who’s currently chief brand and strategy officer at the chain, will take over the top spot on January 1, as current CEO Mark King retires.
Tresvant has a sterling reputation in the marketing world. Before joining Taco Bell at the end of 2021, he spent over 16 years with Nike, where he was chief marketing officer (and, prior to that, VP of marketing) for the Jordan brand. He also spent five years at Pepsi as senior brand manager and two at Sports Illustrated as executive brand director.
Here are a few things to know about the new king of tacos.
You can thank him for the return of Mexican Pizza
Tresvant oversees everything from Taco Bell’s strategy and global communications to food innovation right now. And it’s that last one that has made him popular with fans of the chain. He’s widely credited with bringing back the popular Mexican Pizza menu item two years after it was removed from the menu, a move that outraged fans. (“I had more feedback—hate mail!—over the removal of Mexican pizza [than any other time],” current CEO King has said.)
Tresvant was also behind the return of crispy chicken wings earlier this year and last year’s Taco Lover’s pass, which let patrons have one taco a day for 30 consecutive days—for just $10.
He drives his companies to embrace pop culture
You’ve probably noticed the increased presence of Pete Davidson in Taco Bell ads recently. That’s Tresvant at work.
Since his days at Nike, he has seen the power of linking brands to pop culture touchstones. While at the shoe company, he was involved with the Last Dance documentary for the Jordan brand and, in 2019, put together a relationship with Epic Games that let Fortnite players wear virtual versions of Jordan shoes in the game.
He helped Taco Bell better identify its customers
Upon joining Taco Bell, Tresvant embarked on a mission to better identify who the customer was. He was searching, he said, for a “muse.” The end result was what the company called “the cultural rebel,” with specific interests and attitudes. And it used that model to guide decisions in marketing, even guiding its decision to feature Doja Cat in its Super Bowl ad.
“If you look at a lot of ads, I’m not sure who they’re speaking to—other than being clever,” Tresvant told Entrepreneur magazine.
The cultural-rebel model seems to be paying off. Taco Bell sales helped parent company Yum Brands beat analyst expectations in its most recent quarterly earnings.
(4)
