Burger King Hires Brenneman, Ex-Airline Executive, to Be CEO

Burger King Corp., the No. 2 U.S. hamburger chain, Tuesday named a turnaround specialist as its 10th chief executive in 15 years as the company sought to gain the support of its operators.

Greg Brenneman, 42, former chief operating officer of Continental Airlines Inc. and most recently chairman and chief executive of private equity firm TurnWorks Inc., will join Burger King on Aug. 1. He will succeed Brad Blum, who resigned this month after 18 months on the job after unspecified “strategic differences” with the board.

Burger King, which has about 7,700 restaurants in the United States, most of which are franchised, is owned by a private equity group consisting of Texas Pacific Group, Bain Capital and GS Capital Partners. The company trails McDonald’s Corp., which has about 13,000 U.S. stores.

In recent years, Miami-based Burger King has suffered from a lack of a clear identity in consumers’ minds and shaky relations with franchisees.

Brenneman is credited with helping return Continental to profitability. As CEO of PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting, he put together a restructuring plan that led to an IPO and an eventual sale to IBM Corp.

Analysts believe Brenneman will find it tough keeping pace with the health-oriented marketing efforts of rivals such as McDonald’s and Wendy’s International Inc. He needs to move swiftly to win support from Burger King’s operator base, which has seen three of its 10 biggest franchisees file for bankruptcy protection in recent years because of heavy debt and overexpansion, analysts said.

The new CEO said his priority would be to keep up the recent sales momentum, adding to new-product hits such as salads and its Tendercrisp chicken sandwich, as well as successful movie tie-ins such as the current “Spiderman 2” promotion.

Brenneman said most of Burger King’s restructuring efforts were behind it, addressing speculation that the company could be poised for a major downsizing.