McDonald’s Appoints Jill McDonald as Executive Vice President and President, International Operated Markets
As our global business and our two international segments continue to grow, each can further benefit from strong leadership teams focused closely on their needs—supporting the strong bench of talent in their segments and representing the perspectives of their markets on the Global Senior Leadership Team.

Photo by Alex Motoc on Unsplash
Following our leadership announcements last month, I am pleased to share that we will be returning to a structure of dedicated leadership overseeing each of our international segments. From a financial reporting standpoint, this represents no change as we’ve always reported International Operated Markets (IOM) results separate from International Developmental Licensee Markets (IDLM).
Jill McDonald will be returning to McDonald’s as Executive Vice President and President, IOM, overseeing our five largest wholly-owned international markets and our IOM Business Unit, consisting of our remaining wholly-owned international markets.
Jill began her career as a marketing trainee at Colgate Palmolive and later joined British Airways, rising through the company to eventually lead Global Marketing. Jill then joined McDonald’s as Chief Marketing Officer for our UK business and Northern Europe, and later became the Managing Director for our UK business and President, Northern Europe.
In her tenure, she sustained strong performance across all metrics of our business, including a strengthened brand, a reinvigorated employee experience and double-digit sales growth, all while fostering successful franchisee performance and engagement.
Jill’s accomplishments with McDonald’s and her deep marketing expertise and experience leading several consumer-focused businesses (including most recently as CEO of Costa Coffee), make her the perfect leader to accelerate the next phase of the IOM segment’s growth. Working closely with Chief Customer Officer, Manu Steijaert, and Chief Marketing Officer, Morgan Flatley, Jill will help us elevate our marketing and creative excellence while enhancing our crew and customer experience to unlock new growth opportunities in IOM.
Jill’s first day will be September 5. She will be based in London, reporting directly to me as a member of the Global SLT.
I am also happy to share that Jo Sempels will continue to lead our International Developmental Licensed Markets (IDLM) as Senior Vice President and President, IDL. Jo’s responsibilities will now include our large, fast-growing China business, which had reported to Ian in his capacity as President, International. Jo is a highly respected and talented leader who is known (quite literally) around the world for putting the System first.
Jo will also join our Global SLT and report directly to me, effective immediately.
I am extremely proud of our International team’s progress in driving our Accelerating the Arches strategy. With Jill, Jo and their leaders in respective segments, we are well positioned to continue building on our success. I look forward to even greater growth across these markets through an enhanced customer and crew experience, and improved connectivity and collaboration between our Market and Global teams.
Please join me in welcoming Jill back to the McFamily and thanking Jo for his continued leadership.
Most read news
Other news from the department people

Get the food & beverage industry in your inbox
By submitting this form you agree that LUMITOS AG will send you the newsletter(s) selected above by email. Your data will not be passed on to third parties. Your data will be stored and processed in accordance with our data protection regulations. LUMITOS may contact you by email for the purpose of advertising or market and opinion surveys. You can revoke your consent at any time without giving reasons to LUMITOS AG, Ernst-Augustin-Str. 2, 12489 Berlin, Germany or by e-mail at revoke@lumitos.com with effect for the future. In addition, each email contains a link to unsubscribe from the corresponding newsletter.