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Panera Bread CEO and executives

Executive Summary. Based on our data team's research, Niren Chaudhary is the Panera Bread's CEO. Panera Bread has 140,000 employees, of which 31 are in a leadership position.
Here are further demographic highlights of the leadership team:
  • The Panera Bread executive team is 26% female and 74% male.
  • 68% of the management team is White.
  • 12% of Panera Bread management is Hispanic or Latino.
  • 11% of the management team is Black or African American.
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Name & TitleBio
Niren Chaudhary

CEO

Niren Chaudhary's LinkedIn

Niren is a student Harvard Business School starting in 2016 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a Chief Executive Officer at PANERA BREAD CO. Niren has worked as President Global KFC at YUM BRANDS INC, President at KFC, and President at Yum! Restaurants India. He attended Faculty of Management Studies between 1984 and 1986, Bard College, and Delhi Public School - R. K. Puram between 1977 and 1981.

Ronald Shaich

Founder

Ken Rosenthal

Founder

Louis Kane

Founder

Debbie Roberts

Chief Operating Officer

Debbie Roberts is an Executive Vice President & Chief Operations Officer at PANERA BREAD CO.

Edwin J. Stedem

Chief Financial Officer

Edwin J. Stedem's LinkedIn

Ted Stedem is the Chief Financial Officer for the Company. He has served as Chief Financial Officer of Yum! Restaurants China since August 2016. Prior to that position, Ted Stedem served in a number of leadership roles for YUM over the past seven years, including General Manager and Managing Director of KFC Asia, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Development Officer of KFC South Pacific (SOPAC), and Vice President of Finance of YRI. Prior to joining YUM, he worked in finance, business development and marketing roles with Merrill Lynch, Bain Consulting, and Office Depot.

John M. Meister

Chief Information Officer

John M. Meister's LinkedIn

John Meister joined Panera Bread in June 2013 as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer. Meister is responsible for all information technology initiatives at Panera. Prior to joining Panera, Meister worked for MasterCard Worldwide. In his 15 years at MasterCard, some of Meister’s responsibilities included the global Authorization system, the analytics platforms within the enterprise data warehouse, and a mobile phone card authentication platform. Prior to MasterCard, Meister was with Accenture, where he oversaw a number of major corporate accounts. Meister earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.

Chris Correnti

Senior Vice President

Claes Petersson

Chief Food Innovation Officer

Claes Petersson's LinkedIn

Top executive in culinary innovation. Visionary leader with deep experience re-energizing globally recognized brands such as Campbell’s Soup, Yum, Godiva Chocolate, Sonic Drive-Ins and Max Burgers. Possesses the rare combination of creativity and financial savvy to successfully run food innovation for large corporate divisions. Excels at leading and inspiring teams from critically recognized restaurants to global innovation teams. Owner and manager of highly acclaimed, award-winning restaurant.

■ Trusted strategic advisor to and partner of top management, valued for passionately advocating organization’s mission and ability to engage and inspire others to deliver breakthrough innovation for the most respected food products in the world.

■ Creative change agent skilled at assessing and improving complex situations, and defining and leading transformational initiatives.

■ Enthusiastic and accessible leader with ability to recruit, build and mentor successful teams.

■ Expertise in all types of food products, from fast-food such as pizza, chicken and burgers, to canned soups and sauces, to molecular gastronomy, to high-end chocolates and fine wines.

■ Fluent in Swedish, English and Danish; conversational in Norwegian.

David Gaidos

Chief Food Safety and Quality Officer

Do you work at Panera Bread?

Does leadership effectively guide Panera Bread toward its goals?

Panera Bread jobs

Panera Bread founders

Name & TitleBio
Ronald Shaich

Founder

Ken Rosenthal

Founder

Louis Kane

Founder

Panera Bread board members

Name & TitleBio
Blaine Hurst

Board Member

Mark Stoever

Board Member

Oliver Goudet

Board Member

Panera Bread leadership demographics

Panera Bread gender distribution in management team

  • The Panera Bread executive team is 26% female and 74% male.
  • Panera Bread is 61% female and 39% male company-wide.
Male
Male
74%
Company-wide: 39%
Female
Female
26%
Company-wide: 61%

Panera Bread executives by race

Management Team:
  • The most common ethnicity among Panera Bread executive officers is White.
  • 68% of the management team is White.
  • 12% of Panera Bread's management is Hispanic or Latino.
  • 11% of the management team is Black or African American.
Company-wide:
  • White is the most common ethnicity company-wide.
  • 64% of employees are White.
  • 16% of employees are Hispanic or Latino.
  • 11% of employees are Black or African American.
  • Management team
  • General
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Unknown
White
Black or African American
Asian
Hispanic or Latino

Panera Bread jobs nearby

What employees say about the executives at Panera Bread

Employee reviews
profile
5.0
A zippia user wrote a review on Oct 2024
Pros of working at Panera Bread

Gain more work experience to get a better job

Cons of working at Panera Bread

Not enough hours

Panera Bread benefits

Free food and drinks

What do you like best about Panera Bread's CEO and the leadership team?

He was very kind but the manager she was a little rude

How would you improve Panera Bread's culture?

By letting the manger know it’s okay to show kindness and it’s okay everyone is human we go through things in life

How did you prepare for the Panera Bread interview?

Practice people skills

How does your compensation at Panera Bread compare to the industry average?

Some what

What's the diversity at Panera Bread like?

It’s very okay

What brings you the most joy at Panera Bread?

Being able to be heard by the general manager about getting a raise and an more hours

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4.0
A zippia user wrote a review on Feb 2024
Pros of working at Panera Bread

I enjoy the environment and getting to engage with positive, driven, people and a supportive team. I am enthusiastic in doing what my position entails.

Cons of working at Panera Bread

I dislike that there is a lack of opportunity to advance in the company.

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1.0
A zippia user wrote a review on Dec 2023
Pros of working at Panera Bread

Free food

Cons of working at Panera Bread

The young managers are mean to elder employees and they talk down to them as if they were animals. No employee recognition for good employees. Young teenager employees play a lot at work. They don’t wear gloves when prepping food nor do they wear masks. They talk a lot while prepping customers food while their spit is sprayed down upon the customers food.

Panera Bread benefits

Flexible schedule there’s no benefits for team members. They are only entitled to a pay check and no pay raises.

What do you like best about Panera Bread's CEO and the leadership team?

CEO listens to the managers

How would you improve Panera Bread's culture?

Recognize good workers by offering positions that are trainable as leaders. Turn the volume of the music to a softer tone. Stop the profanity in the work place and eliminate the extremely loud talking.

How did you prepare for the Panera Bread interview?

By giving honest answers

What brings you the most joy at Panera Bread?

When all of the loud managers are not there on weekends. The work environment is more relaxed.

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5.0
A zippia user wrote a review on Sep 2023
Pros of working at Panera Bread

Busy from the time I got there till the time I left loved that

Cons of working at Panera Bread

Really nothing I enjoyed it

Panera Bread benefits

Good management good food

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5.0
A zippia user wrote a review on Sep 2023
Pros of working at Panera Bread

The hours were great. The team was great to work with.

Cons of working at Panera Bread

Getting penalized if you were sick. There were no sick days.

Panera Bread benefits

Doing emails and getting a break on the phones.

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5.0
A zippia user wrote a review on May 2023
Pros of working at Panera Bread

I loved the people and friendships I could grow with everyone.

Cons of working at Panera Bread

It was very inconsistent, managers would abuse power towards others and would never listen to my schedule.

Panera Bread benefits

I'd get great food.

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3.0
A zippia user wrote a review on Nov 2021
Pros of working at Panera Bread

I liked the people I worked with and the customers I served

Cons of working at Panera Bread

The management didn’t really know how to communicate

Panera Bread benefits

Healthcare

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1.0
A zippia user wrote a review on Sep 2021
Pros of working at Panera Bread

The fact that drinks are free to employees

Cons of working at Panera Bread

Poor management, dismissive trainers, lack of breaks, not allowed to drink water on shift

Panera Bread benefits

Free drinks and employee discount

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2.0
A zippia user wrote a review on Aug 2021
Pros of working at Panera Bread

Food was good, some managers were helpful

Cons of working at Panera Bread

Understaffing, overscheduling, lack of benefits, unsafe and unhealthy work environment, and illegal overwork of minors

Panera Bread benefits

Free drinks

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3.0
A zippia user wrote a review on Jul 2021
Pros of working at Panera Bread

close friendships, free food, clean.

Cons of working at Panera Bread

Bad management, inefficient staffing

Panera Bread benefits

free food

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3.0
A zippia user wrote a review on Sep 2020
Pros of working at Panera Bread

Loved the work environment andy coworkers.

Cons of working at Panera Bread

The expectations from managers hoping we'd just do their job for them while they get paid for the work they're supposed to be doing but are watching us do it.

Panera Bread benefits

N/A

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4.0
A zippia user wrote a review on Jan 2020
Pros of working at Panera Bread

Flexible hours and kind coworkers

Cons of working at Panera Bread

Monotonous and yet stressful at the same time

Panera Bread benefits

Being able to work with managers to set my own schedule

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2.0
A zippia user wrote a review on Nov 2019
Pros of working at Panera Bread

I liked the fast pace environment.

Cons of working at Panera Bread

The pay was so little and management was very unprofessional.

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3.0
A zippia user wrote a review on Aug 2019
Pros of working at Panera Bread

Flexible Hours. Easy to get time off. Relaxed Environment (mostly)

Cons of working at Panera Bread

expected to stay late too often. very organized management. employees generally had bad attitudes and weak work ethic

Panera Bread benefits

N/A

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3.0
A zippia user wrote a review on Jun 2019
Pros of working at Panera Bread

The environment, the food, and the people

Cons of working at Panera Bread

The management, although my managers are really nice and funny, there needs to be a sense of order and to promote in order.

Panera Bread benefits

The 65% off food and free drinks.

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5.0
A zippia user wrote a review on Jul 2018
Pros of working at Panera Bread

I like the hours and the pay. The co workers are pretty great too.

Cons of working at Panera Bread

I dont really get any benefits or breaks. The managers can be hard at times.

Panera Bread benefits

Overtime. You get a lot of hours at the one I work at.

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Panera Bread executives FAQs

Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of Panera Bread, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about Panera Bread. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at Panera Bread. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by Panera Bread. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of Panera Bread and its employees or that of Zippia.

Panera Bread may also be known as or be related to Panera Bread, Panera Bread Co, Panera LLC and american bread co dba panera bread.