Popeyes hires Paloma Azulay as global CMO

Popeyes has hired Paloma Azulay as global CMO.

Azulay started in the role in January and reports to Fernando Machado, global CMO for Restaurant Brands International, parent of Popeyes, Burger King and Tim Hortons.

“She is responsible for the positioning of the brand, direction we are taking on advertising, social media strategy, visual identity, restaurant image, sustainability, ingredient and product strategy and new country entries,” said Machado.

After Hope Diaz departed the Popeyes CMO role in mid-2019, Machado took on that role as part of his responsibilities.

Azulay joined from Tim Hortons, where she was also global CMO. Hope Bagozzi is now CMO for Tim Hortons and reports to Tim Hortons Canada president Axel Schwan and Machado.

“The idea is to have one CMO for each of our brands,” explained Machado. He added there is no specific global CMO for Burger King, so he “continues to double hat a bit there.”

Until mid-2019, Machado was the global CMO for Burger King only.

“From mid-2019 onwards, I started to gain more responsibility by adding the other RBI brands,” he said. “First Popeyes, then Tim Hortons [earlier this year].”

Popeyes began its search for a global CMO in August, when Machado, then the global CMO for Popeyes and Burger King, posted about the job on LinkedIn.

Last year, consumers warred on Twitter over what chain out of Popeyes, Chick-fil-A or Wendy’s has the best chicken sandwich. This caused a demand for Popeyes’ chicken sandwich that was so intense it led the company to be sold out in just two weeks after its nationwide debut on August 12.