McDonald's Organizational Structure

About the company

McDonald's Corporation is the parent company behind a system of more than 45,000 restaurants across over 100 markets, and it is far smaller than that number suggests. Roughly 150,000 people work for the corporation itself — headquarters staff plus the crews of the restaurants McDonald's still operates directly. The two million or so people who take the orders work for franchisees, who are legally independent businesses and appear nowhere in this chart.

The corporation dates from 1955, fifteen years after the first restaurant opened in San Bernardino, and is run from Chicago's West Loop. It reported approximately US$26.9 billion of revenue for FY2025 — a figure well below what customers actually spend, because in a franchised restaurant only the rent and the royalty reach the corporation's income statement.

That gap between what McDonald's directs and what McDonald's employs is the reason its structure is worth reading closely. This is an org chart of a governing body rather than of a workforce, and it carries seats an ordinary retailer of the same revenue would have no use for.

McDonald's Corporation organizational chart

McDonald's Corporation's reporting structure as of 2026-08. Drag to pan, scroll to zoom — or open it in QueryChart and edit it as your own.

Three market segments, a global function bench, and a U.S. C-suite that mirrors it

The company reports in three segments and each has a president who sits directly under the CEO: the United States, International Operated Markets, and International Developmental Licensed Markets and Corporate. The segments differ in kind, not only in geography. In the U.S. and the operated markets McDonald's manages the business directly while conventional licensees run the restaurants — roughly 95% of them in the U.S. and close to 90% internationally. The developmental licensed segment is a licensing organisation instead: developmental licensees build and run the restaurants with their own capital, and some of them operate sub-franchisees beneath that, so the president of the segment leads an organisation with almost no restaurant employees under it.

Alongside the three presidents sit about eight global functional chiefs, covering finance, marketing, legal, people, information, supply chain, impact and restaurant experience. The result is a matrix stated plainly in the leadership list: a segment president owns the profit and loss, and a global chief owns the standard. Nothing McDonald's publishes says which of those two lines is solid, and in practice the answer probably differs by function.

Under the U.S. president the company runs a near-complete second C-suite — its own chief financial, marketing, information, people, impact and development officers, a general counsel and a chief operating officer — each mirroring a global counterpart who reports to the CEO. Two further seats exist only because of the franchise model. A National Field President runs the regional field organisation separately from the chief operating officer, keeping the layer that touches franchisees at the segment president's own table; and a Franchise Relations Officer holds a named officer seat, which is to say the relationship with the owner-operators is treated as a function rather than as a duty attached to operations.

Governance sits above all of this and has been consolidating. The chief executive has also held the chairman's title since 2024, so board and executive leadership meet in one seat, and the counterweight is a lead independent director rather than a separate non-executive chair. The board stood at twelve members in early 2026. The chart is visibly heavier on the U.S. side than on the international one, and that is a disclosure artefact rather than a statement of importance: McDonald's publishes a full U.S. leadership team page and no equivalent for either international segment.

Key leadership roles

1. Chris Kempczinski

   Chairman and Chief Executive Officer — Has held both titles since 2024; the eleven executives below are the leadership team McDonald's publishes as reporting to him.

2. Joe Erlinger

   President, McDonald's USA — Owns the largest segment and the only one whose own leadership team McDonald's publishes in full.

3. Manu Steijaert

   President, International Operated Markets — Runs the markets McDonald's manages directly outside the U.S.; previously Global Chief Customer Officer.

4. Dario Baroni

   President, International Developmental Licensed Markets — Leads a licensing organisation rather than an operating one — the restaurants belong to developmental licensees.

5. Ian Borden

   Executive Vice President, Global Chief Financial Officer

6. Jill McDonald

   Executive Vice President, Global Chief Restaurant Experience Officer — Previously president of International Operated Markets, the seat Manu Steijaert now holds.

7. Morgan Flatley

   Executive Vice President, Global Chief Marketing Officer and New Business Ventures

8. Brian Rice

   Executive Vice President, Global Chief Information Officer

9. Tiffanie Boyd

   Executive Vice President, Global Chief People Officer

10. Desiree Ralls-Morrison

    Executive Vice President, Global Chief Legal Officer

11. Jon Banner

    Executive Vice President, Global Chief Impact Officer

12. Warren Anderson

    Senior Vice President, Global Chief Supply Chain Officer — Named on the senior leadership page but at SVP rank among executive vice presidents, so the direct line to the CEO shown here is a reading of that listing rather than a stated one.

13. Myra Doria

    National Field President, McDonald's USA — Field and region leadership is a top-level U.S. seat in its own right rather than a layer inside operations.

14. Gino Potesta

    Franchise Relations Officer, McDonald's USA — An officer-level seat for the franchisee relationship itself — rare among franchisors of this size.

How this structure supports the business

Giving each of the three segments a president with a real profit and loss lets McDonald's move at three different speeds. Menu, price, development pace and the mix of company-operated to franchised restaurants are genuinely different problems in Chicago, in Paris and in a market run entirely by a developmental licensee, and a single global operating line would have to arbitrate decisions it has no information about.

The global function bench exists to supply the one thing a franchise system cannot generate on its own: consistency. Franchisees optimise their own restaurants, which is what makes them good operators and also what makes brand, supply chain, technology and restaurant experience corporate responsibilities. Those chiefs are the mechanism by which a product is the same in a hundred countries owned by thousands of different people.

The whole arrangement rests on the doctrine McDonald's uses to describe itself — a three-legged stool of company, franchisees and suppliers, weighted equally. It explains why corporate change arrives as a proposition rather than an instruction, and why the U.S. segment spends an officer seat on franchise relations: in a structure where most execution happens outside the org chart, persuasion is the operating mechanism, not a soft skill.

Advantages and disadvantages

Three segment presidents with real P&L authority let McDonald's set price, menu and development pace market by market instead of exporting one plan.

It multiplies the functional apparatus. A global standard has to be re-argued inside each segment, and the U.S. segment's parallel C-suite means several functions carry two chiefs, two budgets and two roadmaps.

Franchising around 95% of restaurants keeps growth capital-light and puts locally invested owner-operators in charge of execution, which is why headcount and fixed cost stay small against revenue.

Corporate cannot order a restaurant to change. Equipment, technology and menu decisions have to be sold to independent operators who fund them, so rollout speed is set by franchisee economics rather than by the reporting line.

A near-complete U.S. C-suite under the segment president means the largest market never waits behind a global queue for a marketing, technology or development decision.

It produces genuine matrix ambiguity: a U.S. chief marketing or information officer answers to the president who owns their results and to a global chief who owns their standards, and nothing McDonald's publishes resolves which line is solid.

Combining chairman and chief executive gives one unambiguous point of strategic direction across a system in which authority is deliberately diffused among company, franchisees and suppliers.

It concentrates agenda-setting and self-oversight in a single seat, leaving the board's independent check to a lead independent director rather than to structural separation.

Interesting facts

• The corporation employs roughly 150,000 people against a system of more than 45,000 restaurants; because nearly 95% of them are franchised, the great majority of people in a McDonald's uniform are not McDonald's employees and appear on no version of this chart.
• McDonald's USA maintains an almost complete duplicate C-suite under its segment president — its own CFO, CMO, CIO, general counsel, chief people, impact and development officers and a COO — each shadowing a global counterpart. Functional duplication on that scale is unusual outside holding companies.
• Field leadership is a separate top-level U.S. seat: a National Field President runs the regional organisation that touches franchisees, alongside rather than beneath the chief operating officer.
• Franchise Relations Officer is a named seat on the U.S. leadership team, which makes the relationship with owner-operators a function with a budget rather than a responsibility bolted onto operations.
• The developmental licensed segment is run by contract rather than by management: licensees build and operate the restaurants themselves and some run sub-franchisees beneath that, so its president leads a segment with essentially no restaurant employees under it.
• Since 2024 the chairman and chief executive titles have been held by one person, with a lead independent director rather than a non-executive chair as the board's counterweight; the board reached twelve members in early 2026.

Frequently asked questions

What type of organizational structure does McDonald's use?

A hybrid: three geographic reporting segments — the United States, International Operated Markets, and International Developmental Licensed Markets — each led by a president, overlaid with about eight global functional chiefs covering finance, marketing, legal, people, technology, supply chain, impact and restaurant experience. The segment presidents own the profit and loss; the global chiefs own the standards, which makes the middle of the chart a matrix rather than a pure divisional tree.

Who reports directly to the CEO of McDonald's?

The three segment presidents — Joe Erlinger for the U.S., Manu Steijaert for International Operated Markets and Dario Baroni for the developmental licensed markets — plus the global functional chiefs: Ian Borden in finance, Morgan Flatley in marketing, Brian Rice in technology, Tiffanie Boyd in people, Desiree Ralls-Morrison in legal, Jon Banner in impact, Warren Anderson in supply chain and Jill McDonald in restaurant experience. These twelve are the leadership team McDonald's publishes together.

Are McDonald's franchisees part of this org chart?

No, and that is the most important thing to understand about it. Nearly 95% of McDonald's restaurants are owned and operated by franchisees who are independent businesses with their own employees, payroll and management. The corporate chart shows the entity that owns the brand, sets the standards, supplies the system and collects rent and royalties — not the organisations that actually run most of the restaurants.

Why does McDonald's USA have its own CFO, CMO and CIO?

Because the U.S. is a reporting segment with its own president and its own profit and loss, and a segment that size needs functional leadership that answers to it rather than queueing behind global priorities. The cost is duplication: most global functions have a U.S. counterpart, so a decision can involve two chiefs of the same discipline whose priorities are set by different bosses.

How current is this McDonald's org chart, and can I edit it?

It depicts the structure as publicly reported in August 2026, and McDonald's publishes no org chart of its own, so only the CEO's direct reports are evidenced as reporting lines — the layer below is a reading of the company's U.S. leadership team page. Open it as your own chart and it becomes an ordinary editable QueryChart org chart: rename the seats, add reports and adapt it to your own segments and functions.

Use this org chart template

Open McDonald's structure as an editable org chart and use it to model an organisation that sets standards for people it does not employ — segments, global functions and franchise relations on one page.

Open this org chart as your own