David C. Novak is chairman and CEO of Yum! Brands, Inc., (NYSE: YUM) the world’s largest restaurant company in terms of system units with nearly 38,000 restaurants in more than 110 countries and territories. Yum! Brands is ranked #241 on the FORTUNE 500 list, with revenues of more than $11 billion in 2010.   

The company’s restaurant brands—KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell—are the global leaders of the chicken, pizza and Mexican-style food categories. Yum! Brands employs 1.4 million company employees and franchise associates across its worldwide system. Outside the United States in 2010, the Yum! Brands system opened approximately four new restaurants each day of the year, making it a leader in international retail development. 

Novak shapes the company’s overall strategic direction, including four key growth strategies: 1) build leading brands across China in every significant category; 2) drive aggressive international expansion and build strong brands everywhere; 3) dramatically improve U.S. brand positions, consistency and returns and 4) drive industry-leading, long-term shareholder and franchisee value. Since its spin-off from PepsiCo in 1997, Yum! Brands has established itself as a global powerhouse going from approximately 20 percent of its profits coming outside the United States to more than 65 percent in 2010, while driving one of the highest returns on invested capital in the restaurant industry. In so doing, Yum! Brands has increased its share price six times.

Additionally, Novak devotes much of his time each year to personally train leadership skills to the company’s management and franchisees, emphasizing teamwork and a belief in people that rewards and recognizes customer-focused behavior with his trademarked Taking People With You program.

Prior to leading Yum! Brands, Novak was president at both KFC and Pizza Hut. He also held senior management positions at Pepsi-Cola Company, including chief operating officer and executive vice president of Marketing and Sales. 

Novak has been recognized as one of the world’s “30 Best CEOs” by Barron’s, one of the “Top People in Business” by FORTUNE and one of the “100 Best-Performing CEOs in the World” by Harvard Business Review. He is also the recipient of the national 2008 Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship. Reporting to him are the chief executive officers of Yum! Brands’ international and China divisions and senior corporate officers. Novak is on the board of directors of JPMorgan Chase & Co., the Yum! Brands Foundation and World Food Program USA. He is also a member of The Business Council and The American Society for Corporate Executives. He devotes considerable personal support to the United Nations World Food Programme and Dare to Care Food Bank hunger relief.