Dive Brief:

• Amid substantial growth and expansion, fast-casual chain BurgerFi last week tapped Michael Rabinovitch, former chief accounting officer of Tech Data Corporation, a Fortune 100 global tech distributor worth $38 billion, as CFO.
• The burger chain also recently hired a COO, added Martha Stewart to its board and shared plans to unveil up to 80 locations within the next two years.
• In June 2020, BurgerFi and special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Opes Acquisition Corp. entered a definitive agreement to combine for $100 million. The transaction made BurgerFi International one of few publicly traded fast-casual restaurants, and gave it an initial enterprise value of about $143 million.

Dive Insight:

Rabinovitch, who starts April 1, brings more than 25 years of financial leadership experience, including serving as the chief accounting officer of Office Depot, vice president of finance at Claire's Stores, and a senior auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

"As BurgerFi continues to accelerate its growth strategy, Michael's extensive experience in acquisitions, business processes and managing the strong financial structure and growth of large public companies will add significant value to our organization," BurgerFi executive chairman Ophir Sternberg said in a statement. 

"Michael will develop trusted relationships with key stakeholders and teams while building confidence and transparency. I know he understands key metrics for value creation and will collaborate with our leadership to deliver outstanding results," company CEO Julio Ramirez said. "I am thrilled to have him as part of my talented executive team."

"BurgerFi offers an innovative product and a strong customer fan base with a large pipeline to grow; that definitely attracted me," Rabinovitch told CFO Dive. "I always work at companies with values I admire, products I believe in and brands that show the opportunity for growth."

Rabinovitch replaces Bryan McGuire, who oversaw the company's SPAC merger. McGuire, who started in the role in May 2020, will stay on through the remainder of the quarter.

"During the transition, I'm looking forward to establishing the right mixture of people, process, systems, disciplines and culture necessary to support BurgerFi," Rabinovitch said.

BurgerFi will be his first time helming a restaurant brand, but Rabinovitch said both retail and restaurants share key core components: a quality product, building customer loyalty, growth and brand development, fiscal success and culture.