麦当劳CEO黯然下台，为什么董事会不再给他时间了？

    就在前一周，在麦当劳年终收益电话会议中，公司首席执行官唐•汤普森表示，他需要更多时间来帮助这家陷入困境的快餐巨头扭转局势。

    眼下看来，麦当劳的董事会断然拒绝了汤普森的要求。上周四，汤普森宣布，将不再担任麦当劳首席执行官一职。汤普森两年半前走马上任，在此期间，麦当劳销售滑坡、品牌面临巨大压力。去年11月，《财富》曾撰文细数了麦当劳面临的种种困境，。CEO即将离职的消息一出，麦当劳股价在周四盘后交易中上涨了3％以上。

    来自美国伊利诺伊州橡溪镇麦当劳总部对此的官方说法是，现年51岁的汤普森将“退休”。但很显然，“退休”并非汤普森独自做出的决定。麦当劳最新公布的业绩显示，自2002年以来，2014年这家快餐巨头全球开张一年以上店面销售首度出现下滑。正如桑福德伯恩斯坦公司分析师萨拉•塞纳托雷日前在报告中所写的：“虽然我们理解此时退休是汤普森的决定，但无疑他承受的来自投资者以及董事会的压力与日俱增。”

    麦当劳在美国市场的同店销售额已连续下降5个季度，汤普森为何现在“退休”？去年秋天，该公司非执行董事长安德鲁•麦肯纳向《财富》表示：“我们非常支持唐。我们看到公司管理层怀着紧迫感勇往直前，这是件好事。”但随着媒体日益聚焦董事会在麦当劳身处困境时所发挥的作用，麦肯纳及其他董事开始感受到压力。举例来说，前一个周五，CNBC知名主持人吉姆•克拉默在电视上批评麦当劳董事会，责问：“何时才会有人对这类低水准的业绩担责？企业董事会为何容忍这样的错误，继续让[麦当劳和UPS]这两家公司的首席执行官任职？”克拉默称，如果麦当劳和UPS的首席执行官下台，两家公司将立即增值。

    汤普森的继任者将是麦当劳高级副总裁兼首席品牌官史蒂夫•伊斯特布鲁克，伊斯特布鲁克于1993年加入麦当劳，2011年离职，先后担任Pizza Express和拉面道的首席执行官，Pizza Express和拉面道都是总部位于英国的餐饮品牌。2013年，汤普森将伊斯特布鲁克召回麦当劳。去年10月，汤普森向《财富》表示：“我很喜欢的一点是，他有过担任企业首席执行官的经验。这拓宽了他的整个商业视角。”离开麦当劳的两年，很可能使伊斯特布鲁克能以局外人的视角，来审视这家以封闭著称的企业，但要培养出能完成扭转麦当劳局势这一艰巨任务的新思维，两年的时间可能还不够。正如我们在去年11月所写：

    “[麦当劳]成为连锁界老大，靠的是舒适亲切，堪称大众市场典范，其店面无处不在，方便至极。然而，在外出就餐的美国人眼中，上述这些卖点的重要性较之十年前都有所下降。如今，越来越多的外出就餐者，更注重新鲜健康，而非快捷方便，而麦当劳未能让消费者相信，自己做到了二者兼顾。消费者甚至不相信它有能力做到。”

    近几个月来，随着问题变得更明显，汤普森开始胡子眉毛一把抓。他一边推进数字化投资、“自主定制汉堡”平台、简化菜单，一边允许各地区对产品进行本地化。平心而论，麦当劳的很多问题（比如菜品过多）在汤普森上任前就存在，但他并没有使事态好转，反而使得一些问题（比如定价）更加积重难返。

    相比汤普森，伊斯特布鲁克有一个很大的优势，那就是人们对他的期望完全不同。汤普森接手麦当劳时，该公司刚刚取得了惊人的业绩。汤普森的前任——吉姆•斯金纳帮助麦当劳实现了同店销售额连续八年增长，收入飙升近50％，利润增长一倍多。2011年，麦当劳是一年期和五年期业绩最佳的道指成分股。相比之下，伊斯特布鲁克是在麦当劳品牌深陷危机时临危受命。美国《全国餐馆新闻》报道称，2014年是30年来麦当劳美国市场史上首度出现销售额下滑。单个美国餐饮品牌创造的史上最长销售增长记录就此告终。

    汤普森于2012年被任命为麦当劳首席执行官，此后他在首次出席公司收益电话会议时，被问到认为自己会留下什么遗产。他回答：“首先，我希望多干几年再退休。否则，那可能意味着退休并非出自我本人的意愿。”他补充道：“我已经在麦当劳干了20多年。我认为，最重要的一点是，大家应该意识到，领导层的变化并不意味着战略的改变。”

    这一次，投资者势必希望，领导层的变化将意味着战略的改变。（财富中文网）

    译者：Hunter

    审稿：李翔

    Just last week McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson made the case for more time to turnaround the troubled company during his year-end earnings calls.

    His board, it appears, gave him a resounding “no.” Yesterday Thompson announced he will step down from the job after two-and-a-half years, a period marked by sliding sales and mounting pressure on the brand. Fortune chronicled McDonald’s MCD 5.06% woes in November, which you can read about here. The company’s stock was up more than 3% in after-hours trading yesterday.

    The official word out of McDonald’s Oak Brook, Ill., headquarters is that Thompson, 51, is “retiring.” But it’s pretty clear that he didn’t make this choice alone. When the company reported earnings last week, 2014 became the first year since 2002 that the fast-food behemoth suffered a global decline in sales at outlets open for at least a year. As Sanford Bernstein analyst Sara Senatore wrote in a note today: “While we understand that the timing was determined by Thompson, there is no doubt in our mind that he was under increasing scrutiny by investors and therefore the board.”

    So after five quarters of declining same-store sales in the U.S. market, why now? Nonexecutive chairman Andrew McKenna told Fortune in the fall, “We’re very supportive of Don. We see the leadership team moving forward with a sense of urgency, which is good.” But McKenna and his fellow directors were starting to feel the pressure as the press increasingly focused on its role in the company’s struggles. On Friday, for example, Jim Cramer took the board to task on CNBC, demanding, “When will someone finally be held accountable for this kind of sub-par performance and why do corporate boards tolerate these mistakes, keeping the flailing CEOs of these two companies [McDonald’s and UPS] around for still more earnings seasons?” He concluded that both companies would create value immediately if their CEOs left.

    Thompson’s successor, SVP and chief brand officer Steve Easterbrook, joined the company in 1993 but left in 2011 to become CEO first of Pizza Express and then Wagamama, both UK-based restaurant brands. Thompson brought him back in 2013, telling Fortunein October, “I love the fact that he had experience sitting in a CEO chair. It broadened his purview of business in general.” Two years away may very well give him an outsider’s perspective at a notoriously insular company like McDonald’s, but it might not be enough time away to give him the kind of fresh thinking that the chain needs to accomplish an incredibly daunting task. As we wrote in November:

    [McDonald’s] has risen to the top of the fast-food chain by being comfortably, familiarly, iconically “mass market” and so ubiquitous as to be the Platonic ideal of “convenient.” Neither of these selling points, however, is as high as it was even a decade ago on Americans’ list of dining priorities. A growing segment of restaurant goers are choosing “fresh and healthy” over “fast and convenient,” and McDonald’s is having trouble convincing consumers that it’s both. Or even can be both.

    In recent months, as the problems became more evident, Thompson took the tack of trying everything all at once. He was pushing digital investments, a build-your-own-burger platform, and a simplified menu, while also allowing regions to localize their offerings. To be fair, Thompson inherited plenty of the company’s issues, like menu bloat, but he certainly didn’t make them better and made some of them, like issues involving pricing, he made worse.

    One big advantage Easterbrook has over Thompson is that he faces a completely different set of expectations. Thompson had the unenviable job of taking over the company after it enjoyed an incredible run. His predecessor, Jim Skinner, had eight years of consecutive positive same-store sales growth, a nearly 50% increase in revenue, and a more than doubling of profits. In 2011 McDonald’s was the top-performing stock in the Dow for the one- and five-year periods. By contrast, Easterbrook takes the helm during an historically abysmal time for the brand. As Nation’s Restaurant News has reported, this year was the first time in at least 30 years that sales at the company’s U.S. business declined, ending the longest run ever of domestic restaurant sales growth for a single chain.

    On his very first earnings call after he was announced as CEO in 2012, Thompson was asked what he thought his legacy would be. “First of all, I hope that retirement point is quite a few years down the road. Otherwise, that might mean it was induced by something other than me,” he said, adding, “I’ve been around McDonald’s for over 20 years now and I think what’s most important for everyone is to understand that a change in leadership doesn’t mean a change in strategy.”

    This time, investors have to hope, a change in leadership will mean a change in strategy.