Louisville, Ky.-based Yum Brands, parent company to Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell, and The Habit Burger Grill, announced on Wednesday the promotion of Joe Park to chief digital and technology officer. He will report to Yum’s chief financial officer Chris Turner when his tenure begins on March 1.
Park previously served as chief digital and technology officer for Pizza Hut Global. He succeeds Clay Johnson in his new role. Johnson will continue with the company as a senior advisor.
“I’m incredibly excited to continue working with the talented and dedicated digital and technology team members around the world, and to partner with our world-class franchisees to execute the company’s global technology strategy,” said Park in a statement. “I’m grateful to have worked alongside Clay Johnson at Yum! Brands since 2020 and look forward to continuing to help the company drive its initiatives to deliver a best-in-class digital experience for customers and restaurant team members alike.”
Park, left, joined Yum in 2020 as its first chief innovation officer and served as chief digital and technology officer for Pizza Hut Global since 2021. At Pizza Hut, Park oversaw the rollout of Dragontail’s AI-based platform for optimizing and managing the entire food preparation process from order through delivery, and HutBot, Pizza Hut’s “coach-in-your-pocket” app for managers, both of which have been deployed in thousands of restaurants across multiple markets.
Prior to joining Yum Brands, Park held executive leadership positions at Walmart and GE. At Walmart, Park was vice president of associate digital experience and enterprise architecture, overseeing 2,000 employees and providing technology to the largest private sector workforce in the world, modernizing platforms, digitizing processes, and transforming user experiences.
“We’ve made great progress enhancing digital ordering, implementing technologies to improve restaurant operations, leveraging data to enable smart decision-making and piloting emerging technologies, and Park has been an exceptional partner on this journey over the past few years,” Turner said in a statement. “Park is an energizing and visionary leader with a proven track record of rapidly deploying modern eCommerce and data … I’m confident that Park will help Yum continue to strengthen our technology ecosystem and scale our digital solutions at a rapid pace to deliver leading-edge capabilities to our franchisees with advantaged economics.”
Yum Brands acquired Dragontail, a software company, in 2021 for about $72 million. At the time, it was meant to enhance the delivery capabilities, “especially at Pizza Hut,” according to a statement from Turner. Before that, Yum Brands also acquired Tictuk Technologies, allowing customers to order directly via text and social media, and Kvantum Inc., to aid in customer data analysis.