Despite fierce competition for traffic and transactions, the fast casual industry is a small, tight-knit community with a penchant for strong leaders who’ve taken varied paths to the C-Suite. Some CEOs started as operators, working their way up from hourly employee; some started in brand management. Others like Chris Fuqua, CEO of B.GOOD, got their start in the U.S. Navy.
I was lucky enough to work within Chris’ global marketing organization at Dunkin’ and in that time, grew to know him as a well-rounded, empowering, fair and respected leader. While we’ve both moved on, we sat down to chat all things fast (think navy flight school), food and leadership.
This interview was conducted in Boston via FaceTime & was condensed and edited for clarity.
Naval Background & Early Leadership
Panera & B.GOOD are competitors so we’ll steer clear of strategy chat. I’ve always been interested in your career path, take us back to the beginning. Why the U.S. Navy?
My family has a history of service – both grandfathers enlisted in the Navy before WWII and dedicated 30+ years to our country. My dad spent 25+ years in the Navy. I spent 8 years in the Navy. When I left in 2004, it was the first time our family didn’t have someone on active duty since the 1940’s.
So you knew you wanted to join the Navy early on?
That’d be stretching it. I was a swimmer and wanted to swim at a DI school. My recruiting trip to the Naval Academy just felt right – the history, what it stands for, the pomp and circumstance, all of it.
I think the desire to serve our country and others was always there, but swimming is what really pushed me over the finish line.
Did your time in the Navy set you on a business trajectory?
Senior year, I decided to give up swimming and take a leadership position as a company commander, which meant I was in charge of 120 people as a 21-year old. I was leading a mini organization so yes, I guess you could say it was my first taste of leadership.
Did you feel comfortable early on in a leadership position?
I’d say if anyone’s stepping into a management role without some trepidation, then some wiring is off. I had to quickly learn two types of leadership: how to manage my peers (the other 29 seniors within my company) and how to manage my direct subordinates (the other 90 underclass students in our company).
To some, being at an ‘academy’ may sound intimidating but in reality, there’s so much infrastructure it’s probably one of the safest environments for college students. Plus, the Naval Academy was founded in 1851, so they ironed it out by the time I attended.
Tell us about your time out of the classroom and out in the world with the Navy.
After graduation, I attended flight school in Pensacola, FL and then moved to San Diego to learn how to fly S-3B Vikings. Now when I say fly, I was Goose, not Maverick. I sat on the right and ran all the weapons, fuel, and navigation systems.
My squadron had a couple of different missions. We refueled other planes up in the air and also used systems on board to identify different ships out in the open ocean. We were based on aircraft carriers, which meant we could go almost anywhere in the world.
My first deployment was in 2000, and it was right up your alley in that it was global. Over the course of six months, we really saw the world – South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Bahrain, Dubai, Australia, Tasmania, Hawaii and back to San Diego. It was amazing!
Wow. In addition to your time as a company commander, this had to be a transformational leadership experience.
You have to run a tight ship. An aircraft carrier is isolated in the middle of the ocean, yet has the potential to be chaotic – you have 10 planes taking off and 10 planes landing in a span of 20 minutes, multiple times a day.
However, you get to the point where you have dozens of takeoffs and landings taking place without anyone saying a word over the radio. It’s completely synchronous, and the most professional thing I’ve ever seen. The Navy brings together people from all walks of life – from someone who had a tough childhood and joined to escape, to someone who’ll run for president someday – working as a complete unit. All colors and creeds aligned to a mission, doing life and death things every day. Being an officer in this environment was the most humbling experience that I’ve ever had.
Business isn’t always that smooth. Coming off that synchronous experience had to be an adjustment.
It was and I had a second, very different deployment before joining the business world. It was after 9/11 – our country had been attacked, there was a fear factor and it was real. So while yes, we bonded, those experiences stand in stark contrast to each other. The stakes were higher.
Transition to Business
What made you decide to hang up your wings?
My wife, Ashley, and I had our first child, Alex, after my second deployment. I grew up with my dad gone for 6 months at a time and I knew I’d have a hard time being away from my kids in the same way. So, I looked at business and law school and ended up at Dartmouth [Tuck School of Business].
Day 1, I could tell my classmates operated on a different level of intellect. Yes, I had naval experience but they had business experience so they may as well have been speaking German.
How did you find your place?
Most folks with military experience assume they’ll end up at a defense contractor. But I guess I’m a little different…I’ve always loved shopping [laughs].
I was interested in retail and understanding the consumer. This’ll probably surprise people close to me, even today, but one of my favorite things to do is walk around a mall by myself & observe how retailers are trying to sell and how people interact with different brands and products.
So, you liked Marketing.
Yes and it quickly became clear that going to a consulting firm after graduation would be an extended education where I could figure out what else I liked. I interned at McKinsey and ended up spending over 3 years there. My main client was a big-box retailer where I learned everything from operations to supply chain to cash management and mark-downs.
How did you manage business school and a family?
Ashley and I were about 30 years old and eight days before starting my internship at McKinsey, we had our second child, Megan. So there I was, traveling weekly and coming home to Hanover, NH on weekends. I gained so much inspiration from watching my wife at home with a newborn and the craziest 2-year old – she just figured it all out.
They say behind every powerful man is a powerful woman.
Ashley and I talk about the sacrifice on her part a lot. She’s been such a stable force at home for our kids and that has been really important to both of us. Flying planes or running a business are both huge responsibilities, but both fall way short of raising kids, in my opinion. Everyone does it a little differently but we made a choice to have one of us stay home while the kids were growing up. Life is long and she wants to do some other things so in the next phase of our lives, as our kids go off to college. I’m excited to see what she does!
After consulting, you got your start in industry at Dunkin’ and while interested in marketing, you started in finance. Why?
Paul Carbone [former Dunkin’ CFO] hired me and we hit it off from the beginning. Now, you say ‘finance,’ but it was really business analysis.
I came on board to lead a new team as head of business analysis – the idea was to have a single source of truth for data that’d be useable across the organization. The role led me to build strong cross-functional relationships with the leadership team at the time – Nigel Travis [CEO], John Costello [CMO], Paul Twohig [President] and Karen Raskopf [CCO], for example.
Sounds like you seized the opportunity to build something new and unproven. Did you have CEO aspirations at the time and view the role as a way to start building that path?
I think the things I learned as a 21-year old at the Naval Academy are much more relevant to being a CEO than what I learned about business analysis [laughs].
No, I didn’t have CEO aspirations at the time. I was just focused on the work – people were coming to my team with questions and we always found a way to try to deliver results. That ‘get it done’ mentality led me to take on strategy and I found myself working with Bain, Thomas H. Lee Partners and Carlyle on the Dunkin’ IPO process.
Business analytics to strategy to VP, Marketing. Did you plot the move to marketing?
No, it was organic. John [CMO] called me one day and asked me to lead Brand Marketing. Now, there are probably thousands of people in the Boston-area who’d like to lead marketing for Dunkin’. While I loved shopping, I’d never been a marketer, so I had to get out of my comfort zone and rely on the fact that John was willing to teach me.
Leading from the C-Suite
Sounds like you stepped into a role where your team may have had more functional knowledge than you. How did you manage through that?
I was immediately responsible for the marketing & new product calendar, which I had no functional experience in, but brought peer leadership skills from the Academy to the table.
I had to just get in and lead – for me, this meant listening, learning and rolling up my sleeves for lots of doing. I also had an open door policy and spent time getting to know what made people tick.
Some people lead from the front, some lead from the background. I like to lead through my team. After all, I didn’t want to be a career CMO. I’m not a pure creative and I recognized that pretty early. What I love is the chess match of getting people to work together – field marketing, brand marketing, innovation – so that was really the best preparation for being a CEO.
Earlier we talked about structure. The Navy, McKinsey and Dunkin’ are all organizations with histories of process and procedure and B.GOOD is more of a start-up. How have you had to acclimate?
Being in a start-up environment is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. When I started at B.GOOD, there was less structure for sure. But in the last 12 months, we’ve built a management team, operations infrastructure and analytics and marketing processes.
More broadly, if you take the playbook from a larger brand like Dunkin’ and apply it a smaller brand, it probably doesn’t work. You have to keep that entrepreneurial spirit, and hire for 5 star athletes vs. functional experts. For example, I need one person who can simultaneously manage pricing, think about ghost kitchens and figure out how to simplify restaurant operations.
Bringing this full circle, what are 5 leadership principles you learned from your early Navy days that you still abide by today?
Make decisions – People want clarity and direction, so they appreciate leaders who make a decision. You’ll never have all the information you need…if the decision is wrong, then you learn from it and readjust. Just don’t get stuck.
Give people autonomy – Empower people to do their jobs and build teams that work as a unit. You can’t rely on one person to make all the decisions – if that person leaves, the organization is at risk.
Understand the business – Too many leaders don’t understand their business as much as they should. Spend time with your organization’s analytics team and have your pulse on the data.
Live life outside of work – Family is the #1 thing in my life. I can’t be at every event, but I give it my best effort. Just because Ashley’s home with the kids, it doesn’t replace the need for me as a parent to do the same.
Take on scary things – I’ve taken roles I didn’t feel prepared for and just figured it out. Just say yes, and then ask for help. People often look for this perfect career path, and that doesn’t always work. Jump in.
Last question, ending with some levity. I need to know: does Ashley still let you do the shopping today?
Does she let me? I wouldn’t say she lets me do anything. So I’ll just say this – I still go shopping by myself sometimes. I could spend hours in an Apple store, a Tesla dealership, Nordstrom or REI. They all have clean design and products I’m interested in.
And when it comes to shopping, my kids like it, too. I’ve passed that appreciation onto them.