Dine Brands creates chief development officer role

Dive Brief:

Dine Brands promoted Scott Gladstone, Dine’s international president, to the newly created role of chief development officer, the company said Thursday.
Gladstone, who has overseen the company’s global portfolio of Applebee’s and IHOP restaurants in 18 international markets, will maintain his position as international president.
His new responsibilities include overseeing global franchise development, improving the company’s development capabilities and bolstering support for new and existing franchisees.

Dive Insight:

In the past year, Dine has focused on boosting development across both Applebee’s and IHOP. Management has focused international development on core markets of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East and Canada, CEO John Peyton said during the company’s November earnings call. As of Q3 2023, the company opened 16 units globally last year. The company is also using international markets to test a dual branded IHOP/Applebee’s concept, of which there were six open in the Middle East and Canada as of the end of Q3, Peyton said.

Domestically, IHOP opened 29 restaurants between Q1 and Q3 2023, many of which were conversions, CFO Vance Chang said during the November call, adding that he expected IHOP to have 20 to 30 net openings for the year. Applebee’s has been closing underperforming locations, redeveloping second-generation locations and creating a new store prototype to improve returns on investment for franchisees. Dine Brands has over 3,500 restaurants across 18 international markets.

The CDO role was created to leverage shared resources and to drive Dine’s franchisor capabilities, the company said.

“We are positioning Dine Brands to take advantage of and aggressively pursue growth opportunities across each of our brands,” John Peyton, president and CEO of Dine Brands, said in a statement. “Scott’s leadership, together with a realignment of and incremental addition to internal resources, expanded capabilities and targeted investments, will allow Dine to prioritize development as the key growth driver for near and long-term growth.”

Gladstone has been with Dine Brands since 2016 when he joined as head of U.S. development for Applebee’s, later adding business analytics and consumer insights to his role. He moved to Dine Brands as head of strategy in 2019 and was promoted to international president in January 2023. Prior to joining Dine, he was project leader at The Boston Consulting Group.