#269: Damola Adamolekun, CEO, Red Lobster – Show the path to success

Summary

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How Leaders Lead with David Novak

Episode #269: Damola Adamolekun, CEO, Red Lobster – Show the Path to Success

Date: December 11, 2025
Host: David Novak
Guest: Damola Adamolekun, CEO of Red Lobster

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Episode Overview

In this inspiring episode, David Novak sits down with Damola Adamolekun, the dynamic CEO of Red Lobster. Damola shares his remarkable journey—from a multicultural upbringing to taking over PF Chang's at just 30 years old during the turbulence of COVID, and now leading a turnaround at Red Lobster, a brand facing one of the toughest challenges in restaurant history. The discussion touches on leadership under pressure, the power of truth and excellence, practical turnaround strategies, and building belief within a struggling team. Damola’s candid insights offer a blueprint for leaders navigating adversity, change, and high expectations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background & Early Influences

• Multicultural Upbringing: Born in Nigeria, lived in Zimbabwe and the Netherlands, moved to the U.S. at age nine.
  • “I learned that excellence travels. If you’re a good athlete in Zimbabwe or in Springfield, Illinois, you’re going to make some friends.” (04:02)
• Family Expectations & the Ethos of Excellence:
  • His father emphasized striving to be “the best at what you do,” regardless of the field. (05:06)
  • “My dad would say, it doesn't matter what you do. If you're the best at what you do, you can do well in this country.” (05:04)
• Adaptability: Frequent moving taught Damola to connect easily with diverse people and quickly acclimate to new situations.

2. Formative Experiences: Sports, Debate, and Communication

• Football at Brown University: Learned resilience, teamwork, and handling pressure. (01:15-02:38)
• Debate Team Experience: Developed flexible, evidence-based thinking and appreciation for multiple perspectives.
  • “You learn to be a flexible thinker... when you take one side of an issue, it's not that everybody on the other side is necessarily dumb or crazy... they have a different perspective.” (09:38)
• Communication as a Leadership Skill:
  • Damola credits early leadership positions for honing his ability to articulate and defend ideas.
  • Advocates practice—especially extemporaneous speaking and debate—for aspiring leaders. (11:25)
  • “Stepping into leadership roles early, you have to speak no matter what you lead.” (08:39)

3. Career in Finance & Transition to Operations

• Goldman Sachs Internship: Witnessed both the boom and the 2008 crash—shaped his resilience and crisis-management mindset.
  • “I got to see both sides of the coin. Right. And when things are good and when things can go south and what that can look like...” (13:14)
• Private Equity and the Move to PF Chang’s:
  • Identified the hidden “arbitrage” in building a delivery business at PF Chang’s before COVID, leading to rapid adaptation during the pandemic. (15:35)
  • “You could buy a business at a certain price without the delivery business, build it quickly, and change the value of the company completely.” (15:47)
• Becoming CEO at 30:
  • Stepped in during crisis because he’d led major strategic initiatives.
  • Emphasized bringing together the right team and leveraging others’ experience: “If you're willing to engage with these people, their experience can become your own.” (19:29)

4. Leadership Philosophy: Pressure, Age, and Earning Respect

• Handling Pressure:
  • “With pressure… If you’re too worried about the pressure, it takes away clear thinking... You need to make decisions calmly, regardless of the stakes.” (00:37, 20:35)
• Leading Older, More Experienced People:
  • Focused on earning respect through capability and judgment, not age.
  • “People have followed young leaders since the beginning of time... If a person’s young but they feel like is capable… they will follow.” (21:49)
• Mindset on New Challenges:
  • Stepped into PF Chang’s leadership “out of necessity,” not ego. “It needs to be done, and I’m best positioned to do that.” (23:45)

5. Red Lobster Turnaround: Strategy and Culture Shift

• Why Take the Hardest Job?
  • Drawn by the challenge and the iconic nature of the brand. “I wanted a more difficult challenge. I found it—the hardest one possible.” (25:14)
• Assessing the Opportunity:
  • Red Lobster had hit rock bottom (bankruptcy, lease troubles), but retained passionate customers and brand value. (25:47)
• Turnaround Tactics:
  • Start with guest experience: prioritized improvements in service (“Red Carpet Hospitality: Recognize, Engage, Delight”), new menu innovations (Seafood Boils), and focused on attainable, high-impact wins. (27:48-29:08)
  • Don’t try to fix everything at once; prioritize based on importance and ease of execution.
  • Emphasize small wins to build morale and belief.
  • “You show a path… How could we win? … Celebrate the small wins, because it’s hard to wait until you’re at the end of the mountain.” (32:48)

6. Company Culture: From Bureaucratic to Scrappy

• Act Small, Move Fast:
  • Red Lobster needed to shed its big-company bureaucracy and become more nimble, quick, and resourceful. (34:39)
  • Cultural shift: “Now it’s time to act like a smaller company and do things more quickly… that’s a cultural shift as much as any directive.” (34:39)
• Focus on What Made You Great:
  • Keep beloved classics (“Cheddar Bay Biscuits are going nowhere!” (01:10)), innovate thoughtfully, and stay true to the brand’s heritage as you evolve.

7. Learning, Adaptation, & Self-Improvement

• Embrace Change and Always Learn:
  • Watches the restaurant sector closely (e.g., Cracker Barrel’s rebranding missteps), codifies learnings with his team, and adapts quickly based on customer feedback (e.g., spicier options for seafood boils). (36:04-38:38)
• AI as a Tool for Advantage:
  • Encourages his team to use AI for day-to-day efficiency, expects future workflow enhancements from AI solutions.
  • “AI is going to change the world. I encourage people to use it in their day to day work.” (39:07)
• Personal Learning:
  • Stays curious particularly about generational changes and their effect on consumers. (42:12)

8. Leadership Advice & Philosophy

• Live in Truth and Honesty:
  • “I live in the world of truth. I don’t mind saying things that are true.” (31:00)
  • Avoid wishful thinking—be candid about realities and challenges.
• Leadership as Continuous Self-Improvement:
  • “Leadership is self improvement. Understand yourself and what your strengths are and where you can be better... If you want to be a better leader, become a better person.” (48:02)
  • Self-awareness and openness to critique are central. “If you cannot take it personally, then you can be self critical, which... is important because that's how you improve.” (48:22)
• Turnaround Playbook:
  • Assume the downside when planning, prepare for adversity, be transparent about difficulties, but lay out a clear path to success and a vision people can believe in. (45:34)
• Above All, Focus on the Guest:
  • All great brands, when they falter, lose sight of the customer. Recovery starts and ends there.
  • “They take their eye off the guest. That's the number one thing I've seen.” (46:49)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Excellence and Adaptability:
  • “Excellence travels... I learned to try to be good at stuff that I did, and that was always the best way to fit in.” (04:10)
• On Handling Pressure:
  • “Pressure takes away clear thinking. Don't let it.” (00:37, 52:10 - debrief highlight)
• On Motivation for Challenge:
  • “There's no way to live a super impactful life without going through hard things.” (44:35)
• On Celebrating Wins:
  • “Celebrate the small wins... it’s hard to wait till you’re at the end of the mountain.” (33:47)
• On Being a Young CEO:
  • “People have followed young leaders since the beginning of time… If they respect the person, they will follow." (21:49)
• On the Greatest Turnaround:
  • “If we're successful, I think it would be... the greatest comeback in restaurant history.” (30:40)
• On Leadership & Truth:
  • “I live in the world of truth.” (31:00, echoed in debrief 53:32)
• Advice to Leaders:
  • “Leadership is self improvement... If you want to be a better leader, become a better person.” (48:02)

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• 00:37 – Damola on managing pressure
• 04:02–05:42 – Lessons from family and the “excellence travels” philosophy
• 08:39–10:19 – Communication, debate, and flexible thinking
• 13:14 – Lessons from Goldman Sachs during the 2008 crisis
• 15:35 – The PF Chang’s turnaround: identifying and capitalizing on delivery
• 19:29 – Coping with being the youngest in the room
• 21:49 – How young leaders earn respect from experienced teams
• 25:14 – Why take on Red Lobster’s massive challenge?
• 27:48–29:08 – Turnaround priorities: guest experience, menu simplicity, fast wins
• 32:48–33:44 – Building belief and celebrating small wins
• 34:39 – Driving a scrappier culture at Red Lobster
• 39:07 – Embracing AI in leadership and business operations
• 45:34 – Damola’s playbook for leading a business in distress
• 46:49 – Brands fail when they lose sight of the guest
• 48:02 – “Leadership is self improvement,” advice for aspiring leaders

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Lightning Round (40:37–43:51)

• Three Words: Bold, empathetic, decisive.
• Who would play you in a movie? Will Smith.
• Personal rituals: Workout every morning; enjoys cigars most days.
• Jazz fan and lover of his house: “They say I’m young, but I’m an old man. I just listen to my jazz and relax.” (43:10)
• On upbringing: “Anybody can achieve anything... people should feel like anything's possible.” (43:21)

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Tone & Atmosphere

Damola brings a steady, candid, and quietly confident energy, balancing strategic rigor with humor and humility. David Novak’s interview style is affirming but probing, drawing out actionable leadership philosophies and memorable anecdotes. The tone is both inspirational and practical, rich with lessons for leaders at all stages.

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Conclusion – Practical Takeaways

• Start with the customer/guest—every turnaround begins and ultimately succeeds or fails there.
• Embrace self-awareness and seek honest feedback to fuel continuous improvement in yourself and your business.
• Celebrate small wins to build momentum and belief during difficult transitions.
• Stay even-keeled under pressure and make decisions grounded in truth—don’t let emotion or stress cloud your thinking.
• Surround yourself with experience; confidence comes from humility, inclusion, and execution—not age or ego.
• Leverage new tools (like AI), but never lose touch with the core values and experiences that made the brand special in the first place.
• Being a leader means being a perpetual learner and motivator—especially in times of distress.

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For anyone leading teams through challenge and change, Damola Adamolekun’s story is a masterclass in focus, resilience, and authentic leadership.

Transcript

[Host 1]

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of How Leaders Lead. Today, David sits down with Damola Adamolekian, who is the CEO of Red Lobster. At just 30 years old, he took over as CEO of P F Chang's during COVID And at 36 years old, he's taken on one of the most challenging turnaround situations in restaurant industry history as he seeks to be the guy who returns Red Lobster to all of its glory. And if he is successful, he believes it'll be the greatest turnaround in the history of the restaurant industry. So enjoy this conversation between David and dimola, and I'll see you at the debrief.

[Damola Adamolekian]

With pressure in general, if you're too worried about the pressure, it takes away clear thinking. You can recognize pressure and not let it affect your day to day or your mentality. Right? You don't want pressure to force you into a mental corner where you're making bad decisions. You need to make decisions calmly. Regardless. Regardless of the stakes.

[David]

I'm going to get into Red Lobster. But right off the bat, I got to ask you, do you still have those cheddar bay biscuits?

[Damola Adamolekian]

We have them today and we'll have them forever, my friend. Yes, we do.

[David]

Signature item.

[Damola Adamolekian]

You're 100% right. That's a classic and it's a fan favorite, so those aren't going anywhere.

[David]

That's good to know. I'm glad you've got good judgment. You know, as I understand it, you played football at Brown, which is a great Ivy League school, and, and you were a defensive back. Which NFL receiver do you think you'd have the hardest time locking down these days?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Either Jamar Chase or CD Lamb. They're both insanely quick over short distances. They're great acceleration, and they'd be. They're shifty, they're hard to keep up with. So I'd say one of those two.

[David]

That's good. You sound just by the way, how you describe that you had to be pretty good back then.

[Damola Adamolekian]

Well, you know my strengths. I'm tall and I'm fast in a straight line, but these little guys that go side to side incredibly quick, you know, you have to. You have to stay low center of gravity and do your best to try to keep up with them, but they're difficult.

[David]

What was your welcome to college football moment? You know, that, that one hit play or mistake that you'll never forget.

[Damola Adamolekian]

You know, I was a wing back in high school and a safety, but I was playing against high school players. When you get to college, you start trying to hit college Running backs, some of whom are trying to go to the NFL, and you're 165 playing deep safety, coming up to tackle a 250 pound running back. Sometimes that's, that's your welcome to the college football moment. You know, go, go low. Try to take some legs out and survive the hit.

[David]

Yeah. And stay away from those concussions. I hope you didn't have any.

[Damola Adamolekian]

Exactly, exactly.

[David]

Well, Damola, I can't wait to hear about your leadership journey and, you know, going deeper into what you're doing to turn around Red Lobster. But what's a story from your childhood that shaped the kind of leader you are today?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Yeah, you know, I've got something of a unique background and upbringing. I was born in, in a small town in Nigeria, so I had an international background. I was born in Nigeria in a town called Ileife. Lived abroad in Nigeria and Zimbabwe and in the Netherlands through my childhood, and then moved to the States when I was nine to Springfield, Illinois first, and then Columbia, Maryland before I went to college at Brown. So for me, I had a childhood that required a lot of adapting from place to place, country to country, different types of people, different languages, which taught me how to do well in any situation. A very widely varying situations. I think I learned a lot about people. Obviously the differences in these places, but more importantly, the similarities across geographies and cultures and people and what, what kind of the threads that, that humanity kind of have in common, no matter where you are, which I think is an important part of leadership, is being able to connect to a wide range of types of people. And then finally I'd say I learned that the best way to do well in any place that I went was just to be good at stuff. Right. So I learned that excellence travels. If you're a good athlete in Zimbabwe or in Springfield, Illinois, you're gonna make some friends. Right. So I learned to try to be good at stuff that I did, and that was always the best way to fit in.

[David]

I love that excellence travels. That is so true. No matter where you go, if you could take excellence with you, it definitely gives you heads up, you know, And I've heard you say when it comes to excellence that your parents set a real high bar. What's something they did or said that still plays in your head today?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Yeah, you know, I think for me it's, it's all about expectations. So, you know, my parents always, when we got to America, what my father said was, you know, in America, it doesn't matter what you do because you'd look at, you know, we had a barber that was driving an S class Benz because he had the biggest barbershop in the town in Illinois, in Springfield. And my dad would say, it doesn't matter what you do if you're a doctor or a barber, if you're the best at what you do, you can do well in this country.

[David]

Right?

[Damola Adamolekian]

So it's never about forcing us to do anything in particular. It was all about whatever you do, aim to be the best and let your work speak for itself. So that was the ethos within my family. And, you know, I remember I complained because I'd get all A's in one B, and my dad would want to talk about the B. And I'd say, my friends would be. You know, they'd get. They'd get money if they got 1C on their report card. Some of my football friends, my dad, you know, he'd say, look, when you have a child that's doing 99% perfect and you see one thing that can be better, we're gonna work to make it better. Right? So that was always the mentality, and it was all about doing the best you can and striving for excellence and perfection in everything you do.

[David]

Yeah, that's like my dad, I remember I could hit three home runs, and if I let that ground ball get by me at third base. That's what we talked about after the. So it's great having the parents that raise the bar for us like that, you know? And so you moved to, you know, the United States from Nigeria. How did that move to the United States compare to what you thought it was going to be like? I mean, I know you're only nine years old, but, you know, I'm sure you had some anticipation. Was it about the same or different? You know, what. What was your impression?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Well, I don't. I'm not sure Americans appreciate just how important America is to everybody else in the world and how much.

How much the culture of America influences all the far corners of the world, including the town that I grew up, right? So I knew about Michael Jackson, I knew about Michael Jordan, and some of the big movies that made it to where I was, right? So there was an element of fascination with American culture. I remember I watched the Atlanta Olympics in 96 and got to see Atlanta, which is a place my dad had been before, so asked a million questions about it. So, yeah, look, American culture drives world culture, so there's a level of anticipation and excitement about coming to America. I'd say, lived up to all of my all my best expectations at nine years old, I really enjoyed my time in Springfield and my time in Maryland and I was really excited to be in the country.

[David]

And you know, you obviously did well in school, great at football. And I understand you got an internship at, at Goldman Sachs when you were 19 years old. How'd you pull that off?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Yeah, look, I was, you know, I was ambitious and bold at that age. And you know, I think it's. I had big goals and there was nothing in my world at the time that told me that these dreams were unachievable. So I just sort of went for everything that I, that I wanted, whether that was football and trying to play in college, which wasn't a given. But you know, I had to kind of work to make that happen. Before I went to college, I won $10,000 for a speech contest. For extemporaneous speaking. It was a scholarship, but they gave me a check. So what I did is I opened an account to start investing. So I learned about finance via reading Motley fool and reading Warren Buffett letters and doing my best to be a stock picker. And so when I got to Brown, I had an interest in finance already based on my kind of self teaching. And when I got to Brown, I joined the Brown Investment Group, which taught me a more formal understanding of finance and investment banking and all the different elements of the capital markets. So for me, freshman year, I kind of had an idea this is what I wanted to do. So I applied for an internship at Goldman and I was fortunate to get that and jump right into the deep end. Working on Wall Street.

[David]

Now you're obviously a great communicator. Does that come naturally to you, Dimolo, or have you spent a lot of time working on it?

[Damola Adamolekian]

It comes naturally to a degree, but you can also improve on anything, I believe the things you're good at or the things you're not so good at. So it certainly improved based on practice. I think being in speech and debate in high school was great for me. Now I joined the team because my English teacher asked me to join because she noticed the way I spoke. So I had a talent before that, but she helped me refine that and improve it. And I think that's what you do with all of your gifts. And you know, I'd say stepping into leadership roles early in my life, you have to speak no matter what you lead. You're going to speak to the group, you're going to communicate ideas, you're going to debate, defend ideas. So stepping into leadership positions early, there's a lot of benefit. But one of them is you learn to communicate your ideas and defend them and explain them, which is, I think, a critical skill for whatever you do in life.

[David]

You know, besides having high standard parents, you know, we have another thing in common. I was on the debate team too. So what did you learn about. What did you learn about taking the affirmative and the negative side?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Well, you learn to be a flexible thinker, right? Because as you know, in Lincoln Douglas style debate, you don't know what side you're going to get. And I don't know if they still do this, but back then they were controversial issues, right? And they'd give you a side and you'd have to argue whichever side they gave you. So you had to walk into the day prepared to argue either side of an issue, which means you needed to understand both sides. It's a good practice and a habit because, you know, when you take one side of an issue, it's not that everybody on the other side is necessarily dumb or crazy or stupid. It's like they have a different perspective. And that exercise forces you to take both perspectives, understand both perspectives, and it makes for, I think, a better communication style and better understanding of issues. As you go down the line and.

[David]

You know, in debate you have to get fact based evidence and you go to your evidence and support your points.

How fact driven are you in your process of leadership?

[Damola Adamolekian]

As much as you can be. But the reality is a lot of our decisions, especially in the restaurant business, are subjective by nature. And it's about things that people want or will like. And you can measure that to the best of your ability. But to some level it's a subjective question, right? Like what's the right color, what's the right scheme, what's the right design on a plate? You test it, but a lot of times it ends up being kind of some people like this and some people like that, right? And you try to do your best to solve for what the percentages might say or what the best outcome is relative to your guest. So we try to be data driven, but you recognize you can't get 100% answers on everything. And where you don't have 100% answers, you debate, you discuss and you do your best to take the right decision.

[David]

Back to communication just for a second, what advice could you give other leaders on, on how to develop that skill for themselves?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Practice, you know, and I think there's different forms of communication. There's formal sort of written communication where you have a speech and you need to deliver it, that's one thing. But I think what's most important is what's called extemporaneous communication, which is discussion, debate, thinking on the spot. So engaging in conversation, engaging in debate, engaging in broad based discussion. These are things that will help your extemporaneous speaking, which is what you use the most in real life and in leadership.

[David]

What's the most stimulating conversation you've had in the last few weeks just on the business itself, where it really opened up your eyes or everybody really got super engaged?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Yeah, look, I think, you know, discussions with my board are always really interesting. They're very intelligent people with a lot of different businesses and a lot of different perspectives they bring to the board. So, you know, some of those conversations, you know, without getting into the topic, but discussions with my board around strategy, marketing, menu even. So there's a lot of good, you know, it's the restaurant business. As you know, everybody has a point of view, whether they're in the company or outside of the company. They have a point of view on the business. So it's always, there's always great conversations to be had.

[Host 1]

Hello, friends. I hope you are loving this conversation with Damola. I know I am loving it. And I am also quite inspired to go get some bay cheddar biscuits at Red Lobster for dinner tonight. Be sure to stay tuned to the very end of the episode. David and I, as we always do, are going to debrief this conversation so that you can take away some real practical, tangible tips that you can apply to your leadership and to your life, to your work, to your relationships. You'll get David's take on some of the themes that he and Tomola discussed during this conversation. So stay tuned to the debrief and.

[David]

We'Ll see you soon, you know, and back to Goldman Sachs for a second, where you were an intern. What was the biggest lesson you learned at Goldman Sachs that you carried with you?

[Damola Adamolekian]

You know, I joined Goldman right before the crisis and I did my summers there in 07 and 08. So I got to see the boom times and I got to see when it all crashed down. And that was informative and it was in a way a perfect way to start my career because, and I'm not saying that because it was a good thing that happened to the country, obviously created a lot of issues and pain. But from a strictly professional standpoint, I got to see both sides of the coin. Right. And when things are good and when things can go south and what that can look like and how you Deal with crisis. So that was an informative way to do my first couple internships and I think shaped my view first on investing and then also in managing businesses through.

[David]

Various cycles now and after college and after, you know, Goldman, you got a job in private equity, you went to business school, then started working at a hedge fund. And the story that I've heard is that while you're at this hedge fund, you saw P F Changks was for sale and you went after it. Tell us that story.

[Damola Adamolekian]

I'd spent my career in these places, as you said, mostly focused on consumer retail businesses. So Goldman. I was in the consumer retail group tpg. I was a generalist, but I mostly did consumer retail deals At Paulson I did a lot of things, but again covered retail and consumer for John. So that was kind of my niche already. And PF Chang's came up for sale and the person who was leading the sale process was a gentleman I'd worked with at Goldman who at this point had moved to bank of America. So in catching up with him, he told me about the company that was for sale. He wasn't quite sure it'd be a good fit for us, but wanted to share it with me. So we did a bunch of work and found that we thought it was an interesting deal. And I pitched it to John and to the investment committee at Paulson as an interesting opportunity for us. A bit different than what we'd done, but they're flexible thinkers and they're open to new ideas if they think it's going to be profitable. So we were able to, I was able to get approval to do the deal. I chased it down, we ended up winning the process and we bought PF Chang's in the beginning of 2019.

[David]

So how'd you get these smart guys to say yes? I mean, what was it? You know, how did you think about that presentation and that pitch? What was the key that made it work?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Yeah, look, I think it's different depending on the firm you work for. You need to understand the style of the people that are making the investment. Where I worked was an arbitrage based shop. John Paulson started his career in merger arbitrage and then expanded to a bunch of different things. So there was an arbitrage opportunity I saw with the delivery business, specifically where it hadn't been developed, but it was a business that should have a delivery business. Chinese food. All the systems were available and it could be built relatively quickly. So you could buy a business at a certain price without the delivery business, build it Quickly and change the value of the company completely. Right. So that was kind of the baseline thesis around delivery, which proved fortunate given it was 2019. But of course I didn't know Covid was coming. But even before COVID the delivery thing made a lot of sense and formed the crux of our thesis. And then there was other things that we thought were upside opportunities. Remodeling the restaurants and getting that to be in a state where you could drive the dine in business and improve trends there, various things around technology improvements and efficiency and simplification. So we're able to build a pretty comprehensive point of view that we could get the business at an attractive price, make some improvements, drive traffic, drive off premise dining business and get to a good outcome.

[David]

Makes sense. And you know, as I understand it, you made the shift and you actually became the CEO of P F Chang's. You know, how did that happen?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Yeah, look, I just described all these things we wanted to do, right? So when I get the green light, there's a list of stuff that's expected to get done. And when the deal closes, we brought in a CEO who was wonderful, a guy named John Antiocho who used to run a number of different businesses, including Seven Eleven and Blockbuster back in the day. So he's a very good CEO, but operationally oriented primarily. And so when we started, he wanted to focus on the operational work and we were eager to get going on all these strategic initiatives, let's call it these growth initiatives, building a delivery business, building the app, building the portal, signing up with the third party partners, remodeling the restaurants. I'd say we were moving slowly on that stuff. And you know, the bosses at Paulson were, you know, they asked me, right, what's, how are we doing on this? What's the status on that? So at some point when you're making phone calls from New York to headquarters, it's hard to get a good sense of how things are moving and how you can accelerate them. So I started going to Scottsdale and just spending time there to understand where things were and try to move things along. The CEO we hired, Antioch, appreciated me being there. I was able to take some things off his plate and help him focus on core operations. And I just moved forward with some of these initiatives. So he effectively asked me to step in as chief strategy officer to help him with some of these strategic initiatives. So he proposed that we went to Paulson. Paulson said okay. So I ended up working at Both for about 12 months. I'd fly out to Scottsdale every week and fly back to New York every. Every weekend. And so I did that for a year with Antiocho, and it worked pretty well. We made a lot of progress. We got the delivery business really built up that year. And then Covid hit all the restaurants got shut down. Antioch stepped back. You know, the travel was going to be too much for him during COVID He was older. We were left without a CEO in the middle of COVID And the only part of the business that worked was the part that I had just built, which is the delivery business. So ultimately, Paulson asked me to step in as CEO in Covid, and Tiaco recommended me versus hiring. So I stepped in in April 2020 as CEO, and I took over from there.

[David]

And you got that job when you're 30 years old. And I've noticed, you know, as I've done my research, you know, almost every time your name is mentioned in the media, it also lists the age that you're so young. How do you think about that?

[Damola Adamolekian]

You know, I don't much. I recognize. Look.

When anything you do, you need to recognize your strengths and your weaknesses. And, you know, I have a lot of strengths, but in this situation, experience is clearly a weakness, right? There's people who've done it for 20 years, and I had not. So long as you can't be a perfect candidate for anything, there's always gonna be some area where you're weaker. So for me, it's about recognizing that and accentuating your strengths and shoring up your weaknesses. So for me, I had a ton of experience at the restaurants. I had a ton of experience at the headquarters. I had a great coo, so I had experience around me. So long as you're willing to listen to that, that can become your own experience, right? So long as you're willing to engage with these people. So I never felt like there wasn't information if I didn't have it myself. It was around me. And so my job was to align the team, build a strategy, motivate people, get things moving, empower the right people, promote the right people. And so long as I was able to do that, we built a great team and we were able to move the business forward.

[David]

You know, when you're the CEO, the job doesn't care how old you are. You own the results. What's the moment early on that made you feel the full weight of that responsibility?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Yeah, I mean, I knew the responsibility from the beginning. You know, I spent a lot of time in the restaurants, and you see a lot of people's livelihoods are dependent on, you know, making successful decisions at headquarters. So you understand the scale of it from, you know, I did, at least from the beginning with, with pressure in general. If you're too worried about the pressure, it takes away clear thinking because you become stressed. So you can't, I think maybe a benefit of playing sports, you can recognize pressure and not let it affect your day to day or your mentality. Right. You don't want pressure to force you into a mental corner where you're making bad decisions because you're freaking out about the stakes. You need to make decisions calmly, regardless of the stakes. So I recognized it, but I wouldn't say that I tried just to make clear, common sense decisions, think through what we knew, what we didn't know, get information, use data and just execute as well as we could regardless of the stakes.

[David]

You know, almost every leader who's on a fast track will tell you one of the most difficult challenges they have is to learn how to manage people that are older and more experienced than they are. You know, what kind of coaching can you give people on how to do that? Because you've obviously been able to navigate it.

[Damola Adamolekian]

Yeah, look, I'd say that people have followed young leaders since the beginning of time. It's not like a new thing. You know, Alexander was 28, Julius Caesar was young when he was a leader. Like there's been young leaders and people are fine with it if they respect the person. So a lot of it is about do they respect the person. If a person's young, but they feel like is capable, intelligent, makes good decisions, has good judgment, they will follow. Right. Because they respect the person. So a lot of leadership, no matter your age, is self improvement. It's becoming the best version of yourself so that people are willing to follow you is number one. And then number two, I'd say if you're defensive, people feel that and they wonder why you're not confident in yourself. It sort of betrays that you might be lacking. Right. Because they wonder if you don't trust yourself, why should they trust you? So defensiveness or blatant self doubt will make it harder for people to follow you. So you need to sort of develop confidence. The final thing I'd say is.

Include people and empower people. If you come in and you're young and you don't have a ton of experience, but you're listening to people, you're including people, incorporating people, they feel heard, they feel like they're helping shape the direction, it's a lot easier to lead that way. And you still own the decisions, you know, and so you have to. But you're confident that you own the decision. So you're not afraid to be debated or to debate or listen to people. So you engage, you incorporate them, and ultimately you take the decision because that is your role.

[David]

You know, is there one mindset or habit that you have that you really think helped you rise above all the noise of age? I mean, you just gave some great coaching there, but if you had to look at yourself and you said, okay, what's the one thing you did to really demonstrate to people that you were you. You. You may not be the oldest guy in the room, but you were the right guy to be able to lead the company.

[Damola Adamolekian]

Yeah, look, I'd say that, number one, I. I never felt like I was the right guy. I did it out of necessity. The business was failing. It was. It was middle of COVID The restaurants were shut down. It was my deal, and somebody had to go save it. And I was best positioned to do that. Right. So I went in there. Not out of some, like, I'm here to save the day because I'm anointed by God, but it needs to be done, and I'm the only one that can kind of do it right now. So I'll come in here and we'll get it done. So, you know, that was my perspective. And so I think because of that, I wasn't coming in to, like, have people worship me. I came in and put, you know, put the hard hat on. And we were in the trenches right from day one. So, you know, I was in the trenches with the team. We're trying to survive. We're trying to make decisions quickly. So there wasn't. There was never a moment where I had to, like, convince people. I just came in and people were ready to go to work, and they knew me, to be fair, I'd spent a year there almost every week. So they knew I was, you know, a serious person and a capable person. But at the same time, there wasn't a lot of time. So it was, you know, you get in, you roll up your sleeves, you go. And, you know, people get on board. And if they don't, then, you know, you have to just address that, too. Right. Like, there's not a lot of time to have people not following you, but it's easier when people want to follow you. So coming in and incorporating people is the best way to do that.

[David]

And you were CEO of PF Chang for almost five years. You had excellent Success there. How'd you find your way to Red Lobster? What was that process?

[Damola Adamolekian]

I wanted a more difficult challenge. I found it the hardest one possible is what it ends up being.

[David]

That's what everybody's told me when I say I'm interviewing you today. Who would even take that job?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Yeah, exactly. No, it's a difficult challenge and I don't want to understate the difficulty that the company was in when we took over. But for me, after the success of P F Chang's, I went back on the investing side and was approached by the folks who owned Red Lobster.

What I saw was a company that was in a worse situation than Chang's for sure. It was in bankruptcy. Sales had tumbled during the bankruptcy. Lease issues from the sale, leaseback, some bad stores, et cetera. You've been here everything you can imagine on the, on the negative side. But it had a couple positives, right? It had a brand that people loved, that was iconic, that had a ton of history, it had a followership that wanted to see the company succeed. And I thought it could be an opportunity to do something incredible and save this company that's mattered so much for so many people. When I took the job, I wasn't under an impression that it'd be easy, and it hasn't been. But we've made a lot of progress and we'll try our best to make this a successful outcome.

[David]

Did the fact that a lot of people see Red Lobster as a dinosaur, did that just really motivate you and want to take the job even more?

[Damola Adamolekian]

No, not more or less. I'd say that. Look.

There'S a lot to be done to improve the guest experience when you're starting at a place where not much has been done recently. So there was a lot of opportunity to be better and a lot of low hanging fruit to improve the guest experience, for sure. Because not much had. There hadn't been a lot of emphasis placed on that by the people who owned this company before us. That's an opportunity, but at the same time, that's, you know, it's a challenge because of how much there is to do. Right. And where do you invest your time and where do you start and how do you organize the sequence of things that need to be done right? So, yeah, it's a blessing and a curse in a way, but we've been able to kind of chip away at it and make some improvements and we'll keep doing that.

[David]

And you have to, you know, figure out where you're going to spend your time. And you know, the, the problem with a lot of leaders, when they get in turnaround situations, there's a temptation to try to fix everything at once. You know, what's been your approach to how to prioritize what you can actually do and execute?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Yeah, look, I mean, I start with the guest experience. You know, as you know, you come from Yum, which is a place that has done a tremendous job focusing on the guest over time. You know, you start with the guest experience and understanding what's most important there and what you can most affect quickly. Right. So for us there was a lot to fix, but service and hospitality was an area where we could make a change quickly. And we did some things at Chang's that were very effective and my coo, who came from Brinker, did some things there that were very effective. So we were able to build a plan around service and hospitality quickly and roll that out quickly, which was a tremendous win. We call it red carpet hospitality. Red. Being recognized, engage and delight. You know, there's somebody greeting them at the host stand to recognize them, right. Or you walk past the guests instead of just kind of putting your head down and shuffling your feet, you wave at them if they're within a certain distance or say 10 foot roll, you greet them and 4ft, you speak to them. Hello, how are you? Anything I can help you with? Right. So trying to just make it more hospitable, make it feel like you're taking care of guests in your home so it's recognized, engaged when you're at the table, serving a table, engaging with them, understand is it their birthday, what's going on? And speaking with them, engaging with them and then delight. Right. Finding opportunities to go above and beyond. Right. When you recognize there's something you can do that's going to make their day. So, you know, we, we rolled out a program around that.

Some stuff on the menu we're able to do quickly. Wrote out some cool new items like the Seafood Boils, which launched in June. So yeah, but there's still lots to do. We got to remodel the restaurants. They're still old, Right? That's, that's a capital question and a time question we've got to do more with. I want to get more value on the menu. It's a hard hit. Consumer and value matters a lot and we can do better there. So there's, we've done some things, there's lots more to do, but you try to just rank them in terms of importance and ease of execution.

[David]

Can you tell us a Story about a decision you've already made that was really, really hard to do and wasn't necessarily the most popular thing to do.

[Damola Adamolekian]

Well, I'll say that the menu decisions are always tricky because you're trying to keep the menu simple and innovate at the same time. So anything you possibly want to simplify is going to affect some people. So you try to just make the best decisions you can there. But I'll say what's rewarding is on the flip side is when you come in with an item that you're not sure how well it's going to perform and it performs out of the box. Well, like our seafood boils that we launched in June. So there's always trade offs with menu. If you just add and never subtract, it gets large. But anything you consider it's going to be a tough decision. Right. Because it's on there for a reason.

[David]

Now you're predicting, and this is a bold one, but I read where you're predicting that this will be, I quote, the greatest comeback story in restaurant history.

[Damola Adamolekian]

Yeah, they always take that part of the quote, but they forget the first part. I said if we're successful.

[David]

Oh, if we're successful.

[Damola Adamolekian]

And I say that just because of where the company starts. Started. Right. It started in, in such a depressed state that, that if we're successful, I think it would be. I've never read about a company that would have come back from the situation it was in to be successful.

[David]

Yeah. And why did you, why did you go public with, with a statement like that? Because people do cut off. Maybe that little, the little caveat.

[Damola Adamolekian]

Well, it's, it's, it's true. I just live in the world of truth, you know, I don't mind saying things that are true. And I've said that to the team too. If we can succeed here, then it'd be the greatest comeback in restaurant history, as far as I'm aware. I think that's true. So, you know, that's all. But, but it's no guarantees of success. We have to work hard. There's a lot of things to do. You know, these are the other things I, I say that aren't as quotable perhaps, but it's day by day and that is the goal, that is the prize. Right. So it's about taking it one day at a time.

[David]

You know, I, I've been in turnaround situations before and, and it can feel a little lonely, obviously, and, and there's a lot of weight on your shoulders. I mean, and, but you Got to go in every day energized, you know, and giving people a sense that, you know, you can actually get this done. What do you do to do that? Is that important to you or.

[Damola Adamolekian]

Yeah, people. It is important you know that because you've let some. You've led some great companies, but people watch you every day, as you know, and the attitude you come in with, the demeanor you come in with is noticed, right? So what I try to do is be even keel because if I try to come in like high energy, you can't sustain that. So some days you'll succeed and some days you'll look like you dropped off. So I don't try to be any different, but I try to come in even. I try to come in as myself. I try to be positive, but I also try to be realistic and honest about difficulties and challenges. Right. So that way you're. You're kind of moving at even versus spiking. Super excited one day and then down the next day because you can't maintain every day some super hyped up positive energy. You got to be. You got to be yourself and you have to be even.

[David]

That's a great insight. And, you know, and anytime I've ever gone into a turnaround situation, I've always found that morale is usually down and people lack belief. How do you get people to believe again?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Well, you show a path, right? And again, I try not to guarantee victory because it's not guaranteed. And this, this was a super challenged company. So there's a lot of ways where things could go wrong, but at the same time, you show a path to success, right? Like, how could things go right, and how could we win? Right? And that's what you try to zero people in on is how to win. Right? And it's not simple. It's not, you know, it's not without risk. It's not straightforward in a situation like this. But there is a path to victory, and you show them that and you try to walk that path, right? And when things go wrong, I think you got to be honest, right. And say there's. We have to make these changes and there's a challenge and we have to make some adjustments. So you try to communicate honestly, but at the same time keep on a path towards a potential win and then celebrate the small wins, Right? Because it's hard to wait till you're at the end of the mountain if something small goes well. I think it's good to celebrate that and let the teams feel good about it.

[David]

Absolutely. Can you give an example of when you've done that.

[Damola Adamolekian]

Yeah, look, I mean, I think the seafood bowls were a really good win, and I wanted the culinary team to take pride in that. So in my town hall, I shouted them out and all the work that went into it and how well it performed. Right. So that's one example. And then there's, you know, it's not all. It's not a straight line up. Right. And it's a lot of times it's jagged. There's wins and there's setbacks. And so you want to acknowledge the setbacks and correct course and you want to celebrate the wins where you can so people feel like there's progress. So you have to do both.

[David]

You know, everybody knows how important culture is. The work environment is not only in every restaurant you have, but at. Within your restaurant support center. And, you know, you're. As a CEO, you're building this culture. What's the single biggest thing that you're really trying to drive from a behavioral standpoint within the company to turn the business around?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Well, I think in this company, one of the things we can do better is be scrappier, be quicker. You know, it's a company that came from a large, large company. Right. This used to be part of Darden, and it was the biggest brand in Darden. So there was a, you know, when you're at that scale, there's a certain bureaucracy that takes hold, and we're just not that company anymore. Right. This company's been bankrupt. It's shed a lot of locations, it's shed a lot of value. It's small now relative to what it used to be. So now it's time to act like a smaller company and do things more quickly, to try to create value and create momentum. You know, that's a cultural shift as much as it is any sort of directive. So it takes time. And I think we're better now than we were a year ago. But it's always, you know, it's always progress.

[David]

How much of the past do you feel like you have to hold on to to go into the future?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Well, you need to. You need to hold on to what's made the company great over time. You know, you can't overnight try to change what the company is. There's a lot that you hold on to. You started the interview with the cheddar bay biscuits. Yeah, we'll hold on to that. You know, hold on to the things that. The things that made the company great, that people love. Right. And try to innovate where we can, while maintaining the core.

[David]

And you innovated, as you mentioned, with the seafood, seafood boils this summer. You know, what did that rollout teach you about, you know, listening to and then, you know, responding to customers?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Yeah, look, we had a big viral rollout, right? And it was, again, not by accident. It's a really great job by our culinary and marketing teams to identify the opportunity and execute against it. We tested it, of course, but what we didn't test or anticipate is how many new guests came in that weren't part of our customer set before. So we attracted a brand new guest of people who, like, love seafood boils and try them in all their local places. So the expectation level there is just different. And so when we noticed that quickly, and there was people that wanted it to be more spicy, for example, so I pushed the team to deliver what we could quickly to satisfy these people, this new guest that we had brought in. So we made some changes a few weeks later just to give people options, the spicy option and the extra spicy option. We did that within two weeks. Right. So that was a quick reaction to the feedback we got right away. And you can't always do that, of course, but when the moment calls for it and it's important enough and we can move quickly enough, then we tried to deliver that.

[David]

Well, that's a great example of your scrappy culture. I commend you guys on it. That's fantastic. Something else happened this summer and, and I know you're reputed to be an avid learner and, you know, Cracker Barrel got a lot of people's attention trying to re reimagine their brand. They had to pull back after getting so much backlash. You know, what were you thinking and what were you, you know, observing as you watched all that go down as it relates to what you're going to be doing at Red Lobster?

[Damola Adamolekian]

I mean, a lot, A lot, right? We watched that. You watch the competition closely, you watch others and what they're doing, what's working, what's not. But in that, I think it appeared to us from the outside, and of course, I don't have all the facts, but from the outside it appeared to just be a bit of a disconnect with the core consumer in terms of what they were expecting and the direction the leaders wanted to take the brand. And perhaps that's the right endpoint, but perhaps they moved too quickly and weren't considerate enough about how people might react to it. So it seemed like a slight disconnect or maybe more than Slight based on the backlash, but you know, they course corrected now, I'd say leading up to the course correction, there's perhaps some communication that could have taken place to ease the backlash. But eventually they got there and they pulled back and it seems to have all quieted down. So, you know, they seem to have managed it well at the end. But yes, lots to learn. How quickly do you want to move, how much change do you want to impose and how much are you listening to your guest in the interim to make sure that you're doing things the right way?

[David]

Did you and your team get together and talk about that and try to codify the learnings or is this just something you kind of packed in the back of your head?

[Damola Adamolekian]

No, we talk all the time.

[David]

Right.

[Damola Adamolekian]

So we talk about it, you know, not just the bad, but the good people who are doing things well. So no, this is part of ongoing observation and communication. So it's, yeah, we, we, we, we, we, we're constantly watching and learning where we can.

[David]

And everybody these days is talking about AI. What's something about AI that has made you maybe stop doing as you're leading the brand and maybe something that it's allowing you to start doing.

[Damola Adamolekian]

AI is going to change the world. I mean, to a large degree it has already, so it'd be silly to ignore it. For us, I encourage people to use it in their day to day work.

We have a license via our technology provider so people should use it to be better at their jobs. It helps with a variety of things that you do day to day for everybody. So I'm heavy on encouraging people to use it. We haven't implemented a organizational use case for it in terms of what's the thing that we do as a company that AI could replace. But there's a lot of people working on that. A lot of our partners are working on that. Inventory management, labor scheduling, guest comment management. So there's a lot of use cases that I expect in the near term AI will become more and more a part of. I think a lot of that will happen through our partners and they'll provide solutions for us to use versus us developing it in house. But nonetheless, I think it's going to be more and more of a part of our business.

[David]

And for you personally, how are you using AI right now to make you more effective?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Yeah, like I said, it can help you with a variety of tasks. I think a lot of administrative and organizational tasks. It's good for a lot of research, it's good for to comb the Internet and pull research on a particular topic it's good for. So I use it. I think most people that I know use it in some capacity and I think it's a wise thing to do because it's here to stay.

[David]

Demol. This has been a lot of fun and I want to have some more with my lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Let's rock and roll.

[David]

The three words that best describe you.

[Damola Adamolekian]

Bold, empathetic, decisive.

[David]

If you could be one person for a day besides yourself, who would it be?

[Damola Adamolekian]

You know, Tom Brady. Let's go, Tom Brady.

[David]

What's your biggest pet peeve?

[Damola Adamolekian]

I don't like dishonesty. I think not accepting truth is a mistake. And when I see it, I try to tell people to live in the truth.

[David]

Who would play you in a movie?

[Damola Adamolekian]

I don't know. Let's do Will Smith. He played the stockbroker in that one movie.

[David]

What's something you miss the most about Nigeria, if you remember it since you left at 9 years old or do you go back?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Nigerians generally are just a very kind of warm culture. It's very connected.

And.

It's a nice thing to be a part of. If anybody has a chance to visit Lagos, I'd encourage it. You'll be welcomed. People are very kind and very loving and it's a great culture to be surrounded by.

[David]

What's your personal record for Cheddar bay biscuits eaten in a single setting?

[Damola Adamolekian]

I mean, sometimes I'm there for a long time, all day with the team. So if I count that as one setting, it's gonna be a big number. It's gonna be, let's say it'll be over a dozen across a couple meals. It'll be in the dozen. Couple dozen.

[David]

Do we have a cheddar bay biscuits national contest coming? Like Nathan's hot dogs.

[Damola Adamolekian]

Okay, I think that's a good idea.

[David]

We're going to.

[Damola Adamolekian]

We're going to name it after you. We're going to roll that out.

[David]

I had to. I had to give you one idea. You know, what's something you've been curious about lately that has nothing to do with work?

[Damola Adamolekian]

You know, I'm curious about. I think we have a lot of difficulty in certain segments of the consumer. And this has to do with work, but it also has to do with the sociopolitical climate that we live in, which I think is tied to the economic climate. So understanding what young people are living through right now. And people, you know, call me young, of course. I'm talking about the people graduating from college now and what their opportunities are and how it's affecting them sociopolitically, especially to try to understand what it means for our future. So that's a curiosity that I think it's work related, but not totally.

[David]

What's the one thing you do just for you?

[Damola Adamolekian]

I work out every morning. And so I think that's for me that's, you know, you say, how do I come in every morning? With energy. By staying, trying to stay fit. Stay active and you'll have more energy.

[David]

I agree with that. Besides your family and friends, what's your most prized possession?

[Damola Adamolekian]

I don't think much about possessions, to be honest. I like my house. My house is great.

[David]

If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Jazz music these days again. They say I'm young, but I'm an old man. Just listen to my jazz and relax. That's kind of most of what I'm listening to.

[David]

You're wise beyond your years. What's something about you? Few people would know.

[Damola Adamolekian]

For me, it's just. I like to just make it clear to people that I had a normal.

High school, pre high school upbringing. I like to make it clear that anybody can achieve anything. So not that they would know or wouldn't know, but I like to be clear that I didn't come from any sort of special background in terms of what I'm aside from good parents and a good household. But people should feel like anything's possible and what I'm doing is available to them and the world is their oyster.

[David]

Besides your workout, what's one of your daily rituals that.

You never miss?

[Damola Adamolekian]

This isn't daily, so don't send a group to have an intervention. But I like to smoke cigars and probably most days I'll have a cigar.

[David]

I can't handle that. That's one thing I can't do. I'm happy you can, but I'm not. I'm not man enough for the cigars.

[Damola Adamolekian]

That's my. That's my thing.

[David]

I know we're out of the lightning round. Good job. Appreciate it. I got a few more questions. Now. You said yes to, to P F Chang's and now you're doing it at Red Lobster. You're celebrating the small wins, but you've admittedly said you got a ways to go and it's not going to be easy.

What do you like so much about doing things that are hard because you're not taking it the easy way?

[Damola Adamolekian]

I like challenges, you know, and there's no. There's no way to live like a super impactful life without going through hard things. I just don't. I just don't. I don't think there's ways to make impact without subjecting yourself to some degree of difficulty. Because by definition, the most impactful things are the hardest things. If they were easy, everybody would do them. So I don't mind if there's an upside case or a reward to it. I don't mind putting myself through something difficult. And you're not guaranteed to win either. And people need to recognize that you're not guaranteed anything in life. So you do your best, you try your best to win. It's not a guarantee, but you take on the challenges and you let it turn out as best as it can.

[David]

You know, if you had to summarize them and you're in the process of turning the business around at Red Lobster, you know, and PF Chang's was no piece of cake either. You know, what are the top two or three things you've learned leading a business in distress that others can apply to their own situation?

[Damola Adamolekian]

One of the most important things is when you take over a business that's performing badly, assume the downside conservative case to start, and not because you want to be a pessimist, but you want to prepare the company to be ready in case things don't improve as quickly as you want them to. So in all of your planning and forecasting and budgeting, assume a downside case as a baseline and then try your best to beat it is what I advise. In addition to that, I think it's important to.

Make sure everybody understands the difficulty of the work that's required, but then lay out a path to victory. That's two things. You don't come in and say everything is great and it's going to be just fine. You say, we're in a really challenged situation and here's all the problems and there's no guarantee of success, but here's how we're going to win and here's how we're going to try to find a way through it. And here's the strategy and here's the path, right? So getting people on the same page, not being over optimistic on your forecasting will prepare you to grind your way out of the situation that you're in.

[David]

You take over Red Lobster, and Red Lobster has a great history and was a leader in its category and, you know, had his glory days. What is it that you've learned that brands like that do that, that take them down the Rat hole.

[Damola Adamolekian]

They take their eye off the guest. That's the number one thing I've seen is things are going well and maybe it becomes more about optimizing margins, maybe it becomes more about, you know, expanding the tent. They take their eye off the core guests and do some things that make the core guest unhappy and come visit less. And if that's not corrected quickly, it can snowball and you can start to see the traffic declines. And in our business, traffic is king. You know, if traffic starts to decline, you know, the whole business will start to struggle. That's the number one thing. And if people can stay focused on, on the guest and on driving positive traffic, they tend to do well for a long time.

[David]

And, and what do you do to make sure that as you lead the company that.

The company stays front and center focused on the customer?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Yeah, that's a lot of my job. And it's a great question because you have a lot of competing priorities. So you just have to make that decision that that's going to be your number one priority. And it's not always easy because there are trade offs. Right. But if you make the decision, you're going to prioritize that, then the team will do the same.

[David]

And last question here. What's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Leadership is self improvement. Understand yourself and what your strengths are and where you can be better. Because the stronger you are as a person, the more people are going to want to follow you. So if you want to be a better leader, become a better person. That's my advice.

[David]

And how do I have to ask a follow up on that? You know, what's your self awareness process?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Truth. Honesty. Right.

[David]

How do you get it?

[Damola Adamolekian]

Well, the problem is most people are sensitive and they don't want to be criticized and they don't even want to think about criticizing themselves. So it's hard for people. So at some point you have to not take it personally. It's almost like you have to separate yourself from yourself. You're not talking about you, you're talking about this person. Right. And what's this person do well and what's could this person do better? And so if you can, if you cannot take it personally, then you can be self critical, which I think is important because that's how you improve. Right. Or you can accept third party criticism and not take it as a personal attack if it's coming from a good place. So that's how you improve, is just by being honest and not being afraid to recognize your weaknesses.

[David]

Well, Damola, I've really enjoyed this. I see why you're in the role and see why you're making good success. And if you're successful, I want you to know something. You will be leading the greatest turnaround.

[Damola Adamolekian]

In the history of the world restaurant industry. I said yes. Thank you. I appreciate that.

[Host 1]

David. After that interview, I, for one, cannot wait to hit up a Red Lobster. I'll probably go tonight for dinner. Damola got me so excited for all the amazing things that he's doing there.

[David]

He's got a lot to do, and he's the first to admit it, but I like the fact how he's celebrating the small wins, you know, and, you know, I think when you're in a turnaround situation, you can't wait till it's finished and it's over. You've got to build momentum and finding those small wins.

Those are key. Whether it's his, you know, hospitality program or the new product that he just rolled out this summer, you know, he's building momentum, making progress, and, you know, he's got this path to victory. I liked him how he talked about, you got to give people that a sense that they can win, and there's the steps that you need to take to get there, and.

You know, we'll see what happens. I think that I was very impressed. I mean, this guy is. He may be 34 or 35 years old, but he's an old soul, and he's wise beyond his years.

[Host 1]

I agree. You know, this is not the first restaurant turnaround situation he's been in. He did it at P F Chang's when he took over as CEO during COVID and turned that business around, and he's trying to do the same thing at Red Lobster. I love what he said, though, David, when you asked him about how do you prioritize the things that you need to do in a turnaround situation because everything feels like it's on fire. And he said, you know, you have to rank the things in order of importance and ease of execution. And then he says, you start with the guest experience. And that seems like such an obvious thing to do, especially in the restaurant business. But from your perspective, David, if there are listeners listening to this who might be leading companies during a time of crisis, is that always the thing to do is start with the customer, like, in any scenario?

[David]

Well, I mean, it is a basic. And you think that it should never not be done. But anytime brands go afar, it's when they lose touch with their customers. And anytime someone brings them back, they get in touch with their customers. So, yeah, it's an obvious thing that you should do, but too many people don't, and you get too internally focused, and you're not really focused on what really matters, which is making your customers or your guests really happy. And that's why I asked him what made Red Lobster get in trouble in the first place. And he said, they lost track of their guests. And I can tell you what's going to get Red Lobster back on track is if they can really satisfy and delight their guests, which is really what he's trying to do. Recognize the guest, engage with the guests, and delight the guests.

[Host 1]

I also love when you ask him, how do you deal with all the pressure as a young CEO and you're trying to revive this brand that's been around for over 50 years. How do you deal with all that pressure? And I loved his answer. I wrote it down. He said, pressure takes away clear thinking. Don't let it. And I just love that because he's so right. You have to stay tethered to his. He's big on truth and honesty and not let the pressure of the moment cloud your thinking. David, what else would you say to someone who is in a leadership role, dealing with a lot of pressure, maybe even not in a turnaround situation, about staying focused on the things that really matter so that the pressure doesn't cloud your thinking?

[David]

Well, I like his comment about the importance of staying even keeled. You can't get too high, you can't get too low. I think, you know, staying even killed and doing what he said, focus on the truth. You know, keep, keep bringing the reality front and center in terms of what your, your customers are telling you, what your people are telling you, and, and also, you know, wanting that truth as a leader so you can get better. And, you know, I, I think he, he understands the, that that's. That's key to the success of. Of. Of. Of this turnaround, but it's also key to the success of, Of. Of keeping a business that's humming, humming.

[Host 1]

I also wrote down in all caps after listening to that interview, a quote from him. He says, I live in the world of truth. And obviously we talk about truth tellers and establishing the reality of our business and most of the interviews that we do. But for some reason, that really hit me. I live in the world of truth because I think, you know, especially at such a young age and dealing with all this pressure to try to turn around this business, it would Be really easy to let yourself drift away from that truth. So aside from having truth tellers in your life and staying grounded in the reality of what's going on in the business, what else would you say to people to just stay laser focused on what it is that really matters?

[David]

Well, I think you have to define what really matters. You know, every great company has process and discipline around what really matters. You know, the customer, the operations that satisfy the customer, the quality that satisfies the customer. You identify those key things that you know that if you get them right, you have a chance to win. If you get them wrong, you know you're not going to win. And then you let everybody in the organization know what those winning factors are.

[Host 1]

Another thing that was really clear throughout the conversation is that Dimola is someone who is constantly learning and constantly trying to refine and improve not only the aspects of the business, but himself as well. And that final question where you asked him, what piece of advice would you give to anyone who wants to be a better leader? He said, leadership is self improvement. And I love that so much. I mean, self awareness and self improvement is also a thing we talk about a lot. But I'm just curious what you took away from kind of his emphasis on this idea of self improvement and leadership being defined as that.

[David]

Well, I think continuous improvement, perpetual improvement, these are things that every business has to do to stay on top. When you stop improving, you start to decline, and when that decline happens, it compounds and it gets worse and worse and worse. And the same is true if you're a leader. You've got to be into perpetual improvement. You've got to constantly trying to make yourself better, and you got to be seeking the truth. So I think the idea of seeking the truth, defining reality for your customers and then defining your reality for yourself as a leader, I think is the way to go. And if you had to boil it down, if you don't start out with high self awareness of what needs to be done in the business that you're leading and for you as a leader, you'll never maximize the potential of your business or yourself.

[Host 1]

You mentioned this in the interview, David, but you can't see Damola's name in the press right now without saying somebody mentioning that he's 34 or 35, however old he is. And I love when you just talk to him about it. You said, how do you deal with people talking about how young you are? And I love what he talks about when he says how he kind of hedges that. He says he surrounds Himself with great people and listens to those great people, and that becomes his experience. After talking to Damola, like, let's just say, David, you're still at Yum Brands and you're looking for a CEO of Taco Bell or Pizza Hut. Would you seriously consider someone who is that young to take over a brand that big?

[David]

Probably not. You know, I think that.

[Host 1]

What about him do you think got him to the place that he is?

[David]

Well, I think he was put in these situations because nobody else wanted the job. And, you know, I mean, and he's the first to admit that, and I love that. And I might, you know, I don't know, I might take a shot on him, you know. You know, but I'm saying most leaders would not. Most leaders would come up with reasons why he couldn't do it. And in fact, I used to get in real arguments with my team when I would hear them say, you know, he. He or she doesn't have the experience. I said, well, what were you doing when you were 37? You know, I know what I was doing. I was running marketing, you know, at Pepsi Cola company. I know what Roger Enrico was doing. He was the president of Pepsi Cola. And, you know, these people did a lot of, you know, we all did a lot of things younger, but when you get older, you think people don't have that kind of. You got to have all experience that you've gained by putting in the hard yards, and that's just not the way it is. You want to find talent. You want to give them the opportunity. I would hope that I would want to put somebody like him in a big job. The other thing I really liked what he said is that just look at history. Look at all the great people in the past who've been, you know, 24, 25 years old when they had big jobs. You know, I thought that was great. And, you know, if you can use. Use history to inspire people with. With what's possible, you know, and I. I think that's. That's kind of when. Hey, who was it he said was 24, 25? I forget right now.

[Host 1]

Alexander the Great.

[David]

Oh, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. They were younger than me. Well, okay, you go for it, big guy.

[Host 1]

I love that he said, listen, this is not a new thing. There have been young leaders since the beginning of time. And I'm just trying to.

[David]

Back then, people died when they were 34 and 35.

But anyway, I think this guy's got a lot of potential. And I think what leaders have to do is find people who have potential and put them in big jobs. As big jobs you think you can handle as fast as you can. Because.

My dad always said potential means you haven't done it yet. But I tell you what, when you have potential, that means you can do it, and you want to test somebody as fast as you can in that arena.

[Host 1]

Well, I, too, am so impressed with Zamola. He's just so smart, and he is an old soul. I mean, I can just picture him after a day of work, like, sitting back on a recliner, smoking a cigar, having maybe a glass of bourbon, and reading a book about Alexander the Great. He's an old soul, but it's that energy that he brings to his work and the passion that he has to really make this iconic brand iconic again that I think we are going to witness if he is successful. The greatest comeback in restaurant history.

[David]

No, in the history of the world. He's got a big job.

[Host 1]

He does have a big job. He does have a big job, indeed. David. That does it for another episode of How Leaders Lead. Be sure to tune in next week and we'll see you soon.