Brian Rice, McDonald’s Executive Vice President and Global Chief Information Officer, is driving a global technology transformation – aimed at enhancing customer, restaurant crew, and employee experiences – fueling McDonald’s worldwide growth. At the heart of the strategy, “Digitizing the Arches,” lies the ambition to build one of the world’s largest consumer platforms and the industry’s most efficient restaurant operating system. This vision is powered by investments in AI, edge computing, and modernized data system and technology platforms.
Recently, in an exclusive interview with CIO Magazine, Brian shared insights on the evolving role of the CIO, the importance of aligning technology strategy with business goals, personal hobbies and interests, future plans, words of wisdom, and much more. The following excerpts are taken from the interview.
Hi Brian. How did you first become interested in technology and what propelled you into it?
My journey into technology began unexpectedly. As a freshman in college, I carpooled home with a senior graduating with an IT degree. His story, including multiple job offers in hand, was a revelation. It was a time before the tech boom, and I recognized the immense opportunity. That car ride led me to change my major and I quickly developed a passion for Technology.
What do you love the most about your current role?
Our Accelerating the Arches growth strategy is largely enabled by technology. We’re creating one of the largest consumer platforms in the world, the easiest and most efficient restaurant operating platform, while at the same time transforming how our company operates and uses technology to drive insights and improve our employee experience.
Our scale is massive. We feed more than 65 million customers per day, we operate in 119 countries and by 2027 we will have 50,000 restaurants worldwide. We are embracing Technology to improve almost everything including creating more personalized experiences with our customers, simplifying the crew experience in our restaurants, and leveraging insights to become nimbler as a company. It’s very easy to wake up motivated each morning.
What do you see as the biggest opportunities and challenges facing CIOs in tech over the next 5-10 years, and how do you think the role of the CIO will evolve in response?
Clearly AI is rapidly transforming the technology landscape and will change how business is conducted in the future. CIOs have the opportunity to leverage AI to drive innovation, improve efficiency, and create new business value. Quickly jumping in and gaining experience through experimentation is important so organizations don’t fall behind.
One challenge is legacy platforms – they slow the pace of innovation. Transforming legacy platforms is typically not easy and requires investment but is very important to do in most organizations to improve speed and minimize risks.
The role of the CIO is becoming increasingly important to achieving business priorities. As a result, CIOs will need to be more strategic, innovative and business-focused. They will also need to be more collaborative, as they will need to partner even more closely with business leaders and third-party partners to achieve goals.
Can you describe your approach to leading enterprise technology teams, and what strategies do you use to motivate and inspire your team members?
The most impactful thing I can do for our business and our employees is to make sure we have a technology strategy that is aligned to the business and then make sure it’s visible, well understood, and our people can see their role in delivering the strategy. I believe that strategy should inspire our people with what’s possible and should be tied back to the business outcomes we are trying to achieve…in McDonald’s case, how are we making the customer, employee, and crew experience better. Then, talk about the progress often.
Second, is to recognize it’s our people that make the strategy come to life. So, investing in our people, in skill development, and providing opportunities to work on career changing projects is important. We just launched our Tech Academy (an extension of Hamburger U) at McDonald’s, which is an investment we are making in developing our people’s leadership and technical skills. Putting investment behind what you say is meaningful to our team.
What personal or professional philosophies have contributed to your success, and how have you applied these principles in your career?
I believe in building a team of smart people around me, where everyone’s opinion is important. That means I need to be approachable and foster a collaborative environment. Not only within the Tech team but with our business partners. We don’t build technology for the sake of tech, so being a business-first tech leader is critical to achieving optimal results. I also believe you need to spend the time to get the story right. Simplify the message and inspire with vision, strategy and a plan that is well thought out and connected to what our business and employees care about.
Is there a particular person you are grateful for who helped get you to where you are?
A past CIO who I worked for took a chance on me. I put my hand up for an international assignment in the Asia Pacific Region. It was a stretch assignment for me as I was early in my career and in retrospect probably wasn’t fully ready in terms of having all the right experiences. But he believed in me, and it ended up working out well and helped propel my career. I learned the business, learned how to lead a regional Technology team away from home office and it taught me many leadership skills.
What are some of your passions outside of work? What do you like to do in your time off?
I think it’s important to have passions to create meaning and purpose outside of your job and provide an outlet to manage stress. I love playing and watching sports and staying active. You’ll often find me spending time with family, on the lake, or on the golf course in my free time. I recently became a grandfather and am also embracing that role as much as possible.
Which technology are you investing in now to prepare for the future?
We’re building one of the world’s largest Consumer Platforms. We have about 170 million loyalty customers now and intend to grow to 250 million by 2027. We are introducing new capabilities around marketing and digital experiences, powered by AI, that are exciting.
We are also completely transforming the experience behind the counter for our crew and re-thinking our restaurant platform. In 2023, we announced a strategic partnership with Google, where we’re bringing Google’s cloud into our restaurants with Edge Computing. That gives us the power to do a number of interesting new things we weren’t able to do previously around GenAI, computer visioning and voice-enablement. Edge will also power our new IOT platform connecting restaurant devices onto a common data highway. This will give our restaurant teams better visibility into how restaurants are operating and will ultimately reduce equipment outages helping our restaurants run more smoothly.
What is your biggest goal? Where do you see yourself in 5 years from now?
We are a few years into the mobilization of our Digitizing the Arches strategy. We are transforming and standardizing our technology platforms, building them for scale and innovation. We’re in the thick of transformation and I look forward to seeing our strategy continue to come to life.
What advice would you give to aspiring CIOs looking to build a successful career in tech?
First, my advice is to think about how you can differentiate yourself – there are a lot of smart people in this field. Get clear on what you want to be known for. For me, it’s being a business first, collaborative relationship-based CIO.
Second, be deliberate about your career choices. Identify the experience you need that will prepare you for the CIO role. What gaps do you have, what experiences do you need? One key choice I made was to gain international experience earlier in my career and that was one of the differentiators that opened opportunities for me.