The following message was sent to the McDonald’s System from Joe Erlinger, Ian Borden, and Jill McDonald.

The following leadership updates build on our momentum and ensure we have the right leaders in place to drive growth, execution, and enterprise transformation across the McDonald's System. These moves reflect the strength and depth of our leadership bench as we continue to scale and deliver for our customers, franchisees, and people.

Skye Anderson will return to the U.S. business as Chief Operating Officer, McDonald’s USA. In this newly created role, Skye will bring together the core functional teams that deliver execution excellence in the restaurants. This includes direct leadership of U.S. National Operations, Restaurant Development, and McOpCo, as well as oversight for U.S. Supply Chain and U.S. Technology to form an integrated operations team. Skye’s new role allows McDonald's USA to ensure that the systems, tools and supply needed to deliver consistently strong restaurant experiences are aligned from end to end.

Skye is perfectly suited to lead this work given her previous experiences with the U.S. business and leading Global Business Services (GBS). Since 2023, she has served as President of GBS, building a new enterprise capability from scratch and scaling it globally, including our new offices in Hyderabad and Mexico City. Under her leadership, GBS has helped reimagine how we operate as a company—modernizing ways of working and building capabilities rooted in speed and agility so we can drive solutions into the business more effectively. Over her 25-year career with McDonald’s, Skye has held senior leadership roles across finance, field operations, and market leadership, including six years as a U.S. business leader, culminating in serving as U.S. West Zone President. 

Mason Smoot will assume the role of Senior Vice President, Global Franchising and Delivery, joining the Global Senior Leadership Team. Mason will be accountable for global franchising standards, systemwide franchisee engagement, and the enterprise frameworks that enable consistent execution across markets. A 30-year McDonald’s veteran, Mason most recently served as Chief Restaurant Officer for McDonald’s USA. Mason has been a driving force behind Gold Standard execution, strengthening operational discipline and elevating the restaurant experience. 

During Mason’s tenure, the U.S. system has expanded through the addition of new and next-generation franchisees, delivered meaningful improvements across key operational metrics including record-high customer satisfaction scores, and driven significant growth in the U.S. delivery business. Mason brings deep field and enterprise experience across operations, franchising, and human resources, with a global perspective shaped by years in U.S. field leadership roles and enterprise positions that supported markets around the world, including his time serving as Senior Vice President, Strategic Alignment and Chief of Staff in the Office of the CEO. 

With Skye’s move to the U.S. business, Mattijs Backx is promoted to Chief Transformation & Services Officer, joining the Global Senior Leadership Team. In this role, he will be responsible for leading Global Business Services (GBS) with a focus on simplifying ways of working, improving service delivery, and ensuring the right capabilities are in place to support growth across markets.

Mattijs brings the experience and leadership needed to guide the team through a multi-year transformation journey. Since joining McDonald’s just under two years ago, he has played a key role in shaping and advancing GBS capabilities in support of our Modernizing McDonald’s agenda. As Senior Vice President, GBS Transformation, he has helped drive progress across Global People, Global Finance, Enterprise Data & Analytics, and McDonald’s AI framework—balancing innovation and speed of execution while taking the time to understand how our business operates. With more than 25 years of experience leading complex transformations at global organizations including PepsiCo, Lufthansa, and Office Depot, Mattijs is well positioned to lead GBS forward as it continues to scale across the enterprise.

Congratulations to these leaders on their new positions.