USA – Subway, the US restaurant chain has announced that CEO, Suzanne Greco will be leaving the company effective June 30 and Trevor Haynes, head of business development has been named interim.
After Hayne’s appointment, Greco remains in senior advisory role and assist in the transition for the position she held since 2015.
“As we work with Suzanne on a smooth transition for the business we cherish, we are grateful for her extraordinary contributions and her insightful and dedicated leadership.
We are optimistic about the brand and look forward to working with the next CEO to ensure a robust future for the company,” said Subway shareholders in a statement.
She took over as CEO after her brother Fred DeLuca, the company’s co-founder who led Subway for decades.
Having joined the company in 1973 and as CEO, she played vital roles in running operations and research and development for the company.
She started as an operations specialist, later earned a business degree in 1996 and in 2013 she became vice president of operations and research and development.
“Subway has been part of my life since I was 7 years old,” Greco said in the statement.
“I love the brand and the company, and I always will, but it’s time for me to have more balance in my life.”
Her departure comes after several years of reported struggle in the fast food industry, with competition emerging from modern and strategic icons like McDonalds.
With a more dynamic market structure, Subway has seen decline in customer traffic and according to Technomic, U.S. sales fell from US$11.3 billion in 2016 to US$10.8 billion in 2017.
Although Subway is considered to be the biggest in number of restaurants than any other dining chain, with a count of about 43,700 across the globe Greco had told Bloomberg in an interview that they were planning to close more than 500 stores in the US to embark on global scaling.
She said she had staged a brand overhaul and is in the midst of updating the stores’ look, technology and menu.
“I feel very good about the strategic moves we’ve made in the last three years, and I have confidence in the future of the company,” she said in a statement.
