Like many people, John Betts started working for McDonald's when he was a student.

But unlike most employees who have passed under the golden arches, he remained with the company even after graduating from college.

Now, about 39 years later, as president of McDonald's Restaurants of Canada Ltd., he is spearheading a recovery that the global fast-food chain began earlier this decade in the U.S. and elsewhere.

"We're connecting as a brand again," says Betts. "It's great, it's fun, it's motivating and everybody within the system - including our customers - are winning, big-time.

Brennan O'Connor, Business Edge
McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada president John Betts has made the most of his fast food business career.

"The U.S. has had the longest recovery in McDonald's. It's had seven years of recovery based on a business plan called the Plan to Win. It's about connecting to the consumer. That's how I really see my role, because everything stems from that."

His McDonald's career stems from his first job in his hometown of Southampton, N.Y.

1. What are your parents' backgrounds?

"My mom was a housewife. She took care of us - me and my younger brothers - when we were growing up. My father was a diplomat in the U.S. State Department, so I spent most of my youth in Europe. We'd move every couple of years. I had a chance to learn, probably, half a dozen languages when I was growing up. It was the '60s and '70, and it was a very different world back then. I really got to see a lot of different things as a kid."

2. What were some of the countries that you lived in?

"We did one posting outside of Europe, in Costa Rica. But we lived in Turkey, Italy, Hungary, Austria, Germany and visited France quite a bit."

3. How did your early experiences prepare you for your position?

"Growing up, you represented the United States. As kids, you didn't realize that, but you have a certain brand about you. In the late '50s and '60s, there were some pretty tumultuous times. We were in Budapest five or six years after the Hungarian Revolution, and the Cold War was going on. So the way we carried ourselves, the way we were brought up, was very mindful of a role. I don't know that as kids we realized that, but my parents certainly ingrained it upon us. My father, just because of the nature of diplomacy (impressed on us the value of) consensus-building, being respectful of others, focusing on communication, appreciating different cultures and trying to understand things differently."

4. What are some of your passions?

"I'm certainly passionate about the business that I'm in. I love the McWorld, as we call it. It gives me an opportunity to work with all the great employees, the owner-operators. It's a very energizing, fun business to be in. I'm certainly passionate about my family, and I'm passionate about living up here in Canada. My father's lived up here for 30 years in Toronto. Now, I have an opportunity to take on a significant role here for McDonald's and be near the family."

5. How is it that your father has lived in Canada for 30 years?

"He married a Canadian woman.

In the mid-1970s, he divorced my original mom and, a few years later, met this nice lady and they got married. They've been living here ever since."

6. How did you end up joining McDonald's?

"I was a college student, or a university student as you would say up here, in my freshman year in my hometown, Southampton, N.Y. McDonald's opened up and I applied for a part-time job. I just enjoyed it. I enjoyed the fast pace (and) all the different folks that you would be dealing with - crew and managers and customers. We have an expression at McDonald's: 'You've got ketchup in your veins.' I was somebody that was hooked fairly early on. It's interesting, because I was really interested in marine biology during my last couple years of high school. Southampton College, which was the university on Long Island, was renowned for marine biology, so I went there my freshman year and I was going to become a marine biologist. Somewhere in that spring semester, I decided to switch over to business, because of just the fun and being responsible for the business. I became a manager at 19 years old and it was a lot of fun."

7. How long had the McDonald's chain been around before you started?

"Fifteen years. I started in December 1970, and it had started in 1955. I feel as excited (and) as passionate, and I run around as much as I did 30 years ago. It's just a great company, a great environment to be in. I've moved around with McDonald's almost as much as I moved around as I was a kid. That was one of those other consequences (of early experiences preparing me for today) - getting me used to moving around."

8. How did you get from where you started to where are you now?

"I started in New York working for an owner-operator as a crew person, became a manager after a number of months and did that until 1976. I was a restaurant manager on Long Island and moved to Boston for 15 years, where I was a manager and I left there as a director of operations, went to Oakbrook, Ill. - that's where our world headquarters is - and had a job there for a couple of years as a director of field service, which are the people that consult the restaurants around the world. Then I became a regional vice-president in South Carolina, (followed by) a regional vice-president in Tampa, Fla. - those were two-year assignments - and then a chief operations officer for the southeastern United States. I (oversaw) about 3,000 restaurants, and then I went back to Oakbrook.

"Then I had the global assignment, which brought me working in Europe and in Canada. The last two years, I was in the Michigan region as a general manager, the leader of that region. Post-Michigan, I was vice-president of beverage strategy in the United States. That was that whole focus on coffee, lattes, cappuccinos and that kind of thing. They're in the midst of completing their rollout. You've got 38 years there, in about two minutes!" 9. How did your transfer up here come about?

"I always wanted to come to Canada and take on a significant role. I thought it would be interesting and fun to have responsibility for a country, if you will. It was either Canada or the U.K. I wanted an international assignment. Maybe that was part of my childhood upbringing, the (desire) to be somewhere different and experience different cultures. I had a lot of interest in this. I had had family up here and a great relationship with the members of the team up here. I got the opportunity to lead, and that's what we've been doing for the last year. It's been a lot of fun."

10. What is your main goal, now that you're heading the Canadian operations?

"My main goal is to become as relevant to the Canadian consumer as we can possibly be. We want to connect well with Canadians across the country. We're doing a fine job of that now, but there's a lot of opportunity in front of us."

11. How has McDonald's been affected by the recession?

"I'm chuckling. I've been getting this question quite a bit in the last few months. We're benefitting a little bit from it right now, with a caveat - the U.S. (division of McDonald's) is in its seventh year of recovery, with strong growth for seven years. We had a tremendous year last year. The economy didn't collapse until October. So our Plan to Win, where we were making our menu, our facilities and our employees more relevant to the consumer, was giving us a running start at this anyway. So our growth began a long time before the recession. We're getting some additional visits, because people think McDonald's (equals) price value. But this coming year, changes we've made are going to surprise - and delight - a lot of folks who may not have been coming to us. Seven to 10 years ago, we weren't focused on being McDonald's. We were looking at a lot of different partner brands and we weren't focused on our core business. Today, many of our restaurants have been re-imaged and have very nice interiors, as you see in some of the higher-class restaurants. We're open 24/7, so we're open when customers need us. The product offerings were much better than they were 10 years ago. They're more nutritionally balanced, taste better and the premium products are there. So those folks that haven't been to visit us for a while, may now try us. And when we come out of the recession, we're going to hold on to a lot of folks that will have a different point of view about McDonald's."

12. Why has McDonald's been in recovery for seven years?

"In the late 90's, we were maturing as a company and our focus for growing our business tended to be on building restaurants that were not as relevant to the consumer's needs. Smaller buildings. And we did some things to our menu. The customers just didn't like the taste of it, or they didn't find it as motivating as they did when they were growing up as kids and had a cheap burger and French fries. At the same time, we were buying other businesses. We sold off our partner brands (in 2002). We focused on being McDonald's again and (introduced) the Plan to Win, which is focused on people, product, physical plants and QSC, which we call quality, service and cleanliness. It's about the experience."

13. How has the trend toward healthier eating affected McDonald's?

"That's something that's on the mind of all consumers. It's on the minds of me and my family, of course. But we have a much more balanced (menu) and a lot of choices that I don't think are as well known. We have premium salads, we have low-fat yogurt, we've got juices, and we're rolling out de-caf coffee in the midst of that; so we have a lot of offerings that meet the needs of consumers today. I think they find that they're really tasty. It's not only the offerings, it's: 'How do you mix that with an active lifestyle?' We've been leading for a long time with menu choices. We provide all the nutritional information to make consumers aware, so that they can make the right choices for themselves."

14. Do you find that you're constantly dealing with the perception that McDonald's food is not healthy?

John Betts

"No. We hear it once in a while, but I wouldn't say it's constant. We spend a lot of time educating and making people aware of the offerings that we do have. I think we have a really good story to tell. It's (a matter of) how much of the time we spend telling it, in addition to telling customers about the other fine products that we have. Breakfast at McDonald's is still the healthiest food that you can eat out there, and we're doing fantastic in breakfast (sales) right now. An Egg McMuffin is made with a real egg. We actually had some customers call up and say: 'Gee, we didn't know that you made Egg McMuffins with real eggs.' We need to be careful about what we eat. But we've done a very nice job with our nutritional efforts. I don't know if we talk about it quite as much as we did a few years ago, but we're constantly trying to educate and make people more aware."

15. What are your expansion plans for Canada?

"In Canada, our focus is on better, not bigger. Every one of our restaurants today has opportunities to serve more customers in the trading areas - the neighbourhoods - that they're in. There's a variety of things that they can do to become more relevant. They can remodel, they can open longer, they can train their people to be faster and they can be friendlier. There's so much potential at every existing facility. That's what our focus is on ... We still do some expansion. It's just not my priority at this particular time."

16. What are your priorities now?

"We're going to do some things this year that are really going to get people excited. They will fit well into the restaurants that we have, and they'll get more people excited about visiting McDonald's. Focusing on value and breakfast and continuing to make sure that we continue provide great quality service. They sound fairly basic, those strategies, but they work for us. Last year, they did a very good job for us. This year, I have no doubt that we're going to have a very good year."

17. What is the most difficult part of your job?

"I love my job. Folks say: 'What keeps you awake at night?' I don't really find anything that difficult. I suppose making sure that everybody understands what we're trying to accomplish from a strategic standpoint. Educating people. But I see that as a lifelong journey of education. People educated me as I grew through the system. (I want to) be continually aware of consumers' needs and how we're going to get better. I don't know that I'd call that difficult. That's part of life, and that is an area that I spend a lot of time on with owner-operators and staff - and folks spend a lot of time with me to make me better at that."

18. How would you describe your management style?

"I'm very active. I enjoy meeting, talking and listening to people in the field. Whether it's in Newfoundland or in Vancouver or any of the markets in between, going out and visiting and talking to people in the restaurants, our owner-operators, I'm a strong believer in listening to what's happening out there in the field ... and being passionate about the business."

19. When you aren't running McDonald's Canada anymore, what will you be doing?

"I'm going to be doing some teaching, maybe a little bit of consulting, but I plan on being here for a long time."

20. What would you teach?

"Maybe a little bit about managing, how to be successful in business. I've learned a lot of things over the years from a lot of people ... Maybe I'll write a book."

McDonald's Restaurants of Canada Ltd

* Brass: John Betts, president; Dave Hederson, senior vice-president and chief financial officer; Len Jillard, chief people officer; Brian O'Mara, chief marketing officer.

* Profile: McDonald's is the world's largest fast food chain. McDonald's Restaurants of Canada is one of several subsidiaries of its parent company around the globe.

* Stats: McDonald's Canada and its Canadian franchisees own and operate more than 1,400 restaurants and employ more than 77,000 Canadians. Approximately 75 percent of McDonald's Canadian restaurants are locally owned and operated by independent entrepreneurs, while the rest are corporate outlets.

* Stock: (NYSE:MCD), 52-week high: $67.00; 52-week low: $45.79; Recent share price: $54.11.

* Website: www.mcdonalds.ca.

* Phone: 416-443-1000

John Betts

* Title: President, McDonald's Restaurants of Canada Limited

* Born/raised/age: Southampton, N.Y./57

* Education: Betts holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from Long Island College on Long Island, N.Y.

* Family: Wife Bridget, two children aged 15 and 12.

* Career: Betts has spent his entire 39-year career with McDonald's. He joined McDonald's Canada as president last year.

* Moonlighting: Betts sits on the boards of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Canada and the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association.

* Passions: McDonald's, running, living in Canada.