Yum names Pizza Hut exec as chief digital and technology officer

Name: Joe Park

New title: Chief digital & technology officer, Yum Brands

Previous title: Chief digital & technology officer, Pizza Hut Global

Joe Park will take over for Clay Johnson as head of Yum Brands’ digital and tech initiatives beginning on March 1, the company announced Wednesday. Park will report directly to Chris Turner, the company’s CFO, and will direct the technology strategy across all four of Yum’s brands: KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Habit Burger.

Joe Park, the incoming CDTO at Yum Brands. — Joe Park will take over as head of Yum’s digital and technology initiatives on March 1.

Courtesy of Yum Brands

Park served as CDTO at Pizza Hut from 2021 on, and in that role he was responsible for the implementation of several new technologies, including Dragontail, an AI system that manages orders. At the end of Q3, Dragontail was operational in about 1,400 U.S. Pizza Huts and roughly 8,000 units globally, according to Yum’s November earnings call. That number is ahead of the projected deployment announced at start of the year, when Yum said it anticipated rolling the system out to 7,000 stores.

On the company’s Q1 2023 earnings call, Turner said that stores using Dragontail “consistently see improvements in product quality and customer satisfaction scores” because the tool’s sequencing algorithm and driver dispatch capabilities improved the freshness of delivered foods.

Park also directed the deployment of a management app, called HutBot, which the release describing his appointment called a “coach-in-your-pocket” for restaurant managers.

With Yum’s digital sales exceeding $7 billion in Q3, technological deployment is key to Yum’s continued success. Park will likely oversee a continued emphasis on digital sales, which enable the company to capture more first-party data and upsell customers in-app.

One potential spot of trouble in Yum’s digital strategy could be the fact that major Pizza Hut franchisees in California’s laid off delivery drivers in favor of third-party services. Third-party delivery services hire workers as independent contractors on a piece-work basis, rather than as employees. This meas gig workers delivering fast food orders in the Golden State are not covered by the wage provisions of AB 1228, which establishes a $20 minimum wage for fast food workers on April 1. The end of first-party delivery for a major brand in a sizable market, while not a major shift on Yum’s overall part, does complicate the company’s efforts to control its digital and technological strategy in-house.