MARKETING Magazine Asia

It looks like Merrill Pereyra has moved on to new horizons from QSR Brands. He was appointed as the Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer, Restaurants at QSR Brands on the 1st of September 2018.

With over 32 years of experience in the international food and beverage industry, Merrill Christopher Pereyra’s career has spanned the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific Islands as well as Australia, where he worked at McDonald’s Down Under.

Prior to joining the company in 2016, he also served in leadership roles for Healthy Habits Pty Ltd, a sandwich bar in Australia and New Zealand, as well as CEO of Domino’s Jakarta.

As the CEO of the Restaurants Division, he was responsible for, among others, the overall strategic management and performance of KFC Malaysia, Pizza Hut Malaysia and KFC and Pizza Hut Singapore, KFC Brunei and Cambodia.

Merrill Christopher Pereyra was so good as chief operating officer of QSR Brands (M) Holdings Berhad, that he was made chief executive officer within six months.

He brought to the CEO’s office a strategy that focused on People, Place, Product, Promotion and Profit, helping pull the company out of a four-year decline in terms of performance.

Believing that great leadership starts and ends with the trust of his people, Mr Pereyra leads by example and places great importance on his own integrity.

A strong believer in the continuous learning process, he credits his success to his hunger to keep learning and improving himself.

As reported in the Edge, he first arrived in Melbourne as an immigrant from Mumbai, started out as a trainee manager at the Bourke Street West store of McDonald’s and worked his way up to all levels — restaurant manager, area manager — before being assigned to open McDonald’s restaurants all over Australia.

He was then sent to the Middle East to set up McDonald’s in Saudi Arabia. A year later, he was relocated back to Australia and put in charge of opening McDonald’s restaurants in the Pacific Islands — Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti and American Samoa — before being made its regional head for Asia, looking after the company’s businesses in five countries — Hong Kong, Macau, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.

After an extensive career at McDonald’s, culminating in a long list of achievements on top of being presented in 2001 with the prestigious President’s Award — accorded annually to the most outstanding corporate employee in the country — this chapter of his career came to a close in 2010.

“After 23 years with McDonald’s, I took a year off in 2010 to study in the US. I did my Advanced Management programme at Wharton Business School in Pennsylvania,” says Pereyra.

“At the same time, I wrote a book, Expand Your Brand: How to Supersize Any Brand Anywhere in the World. I wrote about some of the things I had done — expanding McDonald’s all over the world. It took me a year to complete it.”

Thereafter, Pereyra took up the position of CEO at MAP Indonesia, responsible for the market operations and business development of Domino’s Indonesia.

“I had worked in 14 countries with McDonald’s and then Domino’s before I was approached by QSR Brands to head its KFC and Pizza Hut operations. Within 30 years, I have covered the top four quick service restaurants,” says Pereyra.

Pereyra recently spoke at APPIES 2019 and it was a great honour to have him at the event. From all of us at Marketing Magazine, we wish him well in his future endeavours!