With more than 30 years in leading learning & talent functions in large scale enterprises, Rob brings unique perspective and insights into today’s challenges in workforce development, learning and education technologies, business growth and performance outcomes.
From 2014 to 2020, Rob was the Senior Vice President and Global Chief Learning Officer for McDonald’s Corporation. Rob had responsibility for the overall learning and talent development strategy and execution across all 37,000 restaurants around the world.
Key Accomplishments:
1. A piece of pioneering work Rob performed at McDonald’s was the launch and growth of the Archways to Opportunity program – probably the largest and most comprehensive corporate pathway program to advanced education anywhere. Rob managed the overall strategy, execution, impact, and $50+ million dollar annual spend.
2. Rob led a transformational learning strategy that advanced the capabilities of the L&D function to be more impactful and efficient by streamlining learning technologies platforms in 23.000 restaurants in 40 countries as well as establishing a Center of Excellence model where resources, and great ideas from around the world could be leveraged for the benefit of the entire system.
3. Rob forged a new path of development for franchise owners. For the first time in 60 year history, Rob led workshops with external partners that helped owners focus on growth and scaling strategies to run a better franchise business.
4. Rob also executed a repositioning and refresh of the Hamburger University purpose and brand resulting in an iconic presence at the global headquarters building and the expansion of two additional locations in South Africa and Russia for the first time in more than 10 years.
Prior to his current role, Rob was the Vice President, Yum! University at Yum! Brands. In this role, he was responsible for leading the direction and strategy for Yum! University and its programs as well as providing learning leadership and strategy globally across the Yum! system.
Previous to his role at Yum! Brands, Rob was the Executive Director of Learning Services at Cingular Wireless in Atlanta, GA. He has also held learning leadership roles at Coopers & Lybrand (now PriceWaterhouseCoopers), and Dun & Bradstreet.
Rob has been recognized multiple times by CLO Magazine for his work on achieving business impact, leading business change, learning technologies and global learning. He has also led teams recognized in the Top 50 of Training Magazine’s rankings across multiple years. He is frequently a participant in panel discussions, webinars, and learning profession related articles across the globe. He was most recently recognized as the 2013 CLO of the Year by Chief Learning Officer Magazine.
Rob was a member of the Board of Directors from 2005 and the 2010 Chair of the Board of ATD (Association for Talent Development) Board of Directors. In addition, he is a past board of directors’ member for Leadership Kentucky and chaired the Program Operating Committee for Kentuckiana Works, the metro-Louisville Workforce Development entity.
Rob holds a B.A. in Communications from the University of Scranton as well as an M.S. in Human Resources Development from Rochester Institute of Technology.
