A finance professional running a successful food chain business is not an everyday sight. For Damola Adamolekun the 33-year-old Nigerian who is a partner at Paulson & Co, a private equity firm; the only experience he’s ever had with a restaurant was when he waited tables as a teenager.
The Wall Street finance whiz is leading P.F Chang’s Bistro, a popular Asian casual-dining restaurant chain based in the US.
Adamolekun is the first black CEO of the restaurant. He took on the role in 2020 where he introduced some radical changes in line with the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic at the time. These changes led the restaurant to success with a recorded 31.7% increase in sales in 2021 compared to the previous year’s data analyst firm, Technomic stated.
Some of those changes include revamping the dining rooms, revising the menu items, inclusion of delivery and to-go orders; a change initially perceived as unfitting to the brand.
Adamolekun holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Brown University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is also a member of the board of International Tower Hills Mines LLC.
