The Long View: How JC Gonzalez-Mendez’s 20-Year Vision Led Him from Mexico to McDonald’s Executive Suite | Restaurants & Franchises Series

Anthony Codispoti : Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codispoti and today’s guest is JC Gonzalez-Mendez, partner and CEO at Bien Trucha Group. They were founded in 2016 and headquartered in Geneva, Illinois. They’re a restaurant group known for their innovative concepts and exceptional culinary experiences.

They focus on creating memorable dining moments through their passion and dedication to world-class hospitality. Now, JC himself brings over three decades of leadership experience from his time at McDonald’s, where he was McDonald’s very first employee ever in Mexico and served as president of Latin America and chief supply chain officer for North America. He also played leading roles in social responsibility and global sustainability initiatives. Among his many honors, JC was named as one of the top 10 leaders by Hispanic executive in 2016 and earned an honorary doctorate from Loyola University, Chicago.

He has also been recognized as one of the 100 most influential Hispanics by Hispanic magazine. JC is committed to developing strong teams and uplifting communities wherever he goes. Now before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. Back to our guest today, President and CEO of the Entrucha Group, JC. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : Thanks for the opportunity, Anthony. It’s a pleasure, really.

Anthony Codispoti : Well, let’s go back to your time at McDonald’s. You had a very long and storied career there. I’m curious to hear, going to the beginning, how did that first opportunity come about?

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : I was 24 years old at the time working on our research and development lab for the Mexican government developing food products derived from the ocean. How did that opportunity come about? I believe I was very lucky.

Now, one of my definitions of luck is the intersection of opportunity with preparation. At the time, McDonald’s was looking for somebody that had a food tick background, which I did, and knew a little bit of English, which I did not. But my boss was Cuban and we faked it for a few months.

My mom was a translator for Pete Mardik at the time and she would help me translate my reports and send them back to the US. So I said that I fell on McDonald’s by pure luck, really.

Anthony Codispoti : And so what was that very first position like?

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : It was exhilarating. When I was invited to interview in Oak Brook, Illinois, where the corporate offices were at the time, that was the second time I ever took a plane ride. And they hosted me at the McDonald’s Lodge, a hotel operated by Hayat at the time. And they showed me Hammer University and the Global Headquarters and I was in awe. I remember that I had an interview with three different individuals. And when they asked the first question for me, I said, do you have any questions? And I remember gesturing with my hand, where do I sign? And they said, well, but you haven’t even told us what your expectations are.

My only expectation is that you will treat me right. Where do I sign? An offer did not come that day.

I remember calling Deborah, my wife, and she asked me how did it go. I said, well, I really don’t know because these people are really looking for this at the big leagues. And I don’t think I have a chance.

I mean, this was just too big for me to surreal. Well, long behold, a couple of weeks later, they made an offer. And I started as the very first employee of McDonald’s, Mexico. My job was to develop the sources of supply for the first restaurant that opened in 1985. So I used my food tech background and Mexico was the very first country that had to open with 100% locally produced items, which was a challenge because the McDonald’s standards around the globe are set.

And it doesn’t matter if suppliers are providing for one restaurant or 10,000 restaurants. But it was a great time for me to be associated with the company because having been the first employee, not only did I learn about the supply chain, but because I was the only conduit at McDonald’s. I dealt with construction, dealt with real estate, dealt with equipment purchasing, dealt with other things that eventually people were high. So I got exposed to a lot of different things within the business.

Anthony Codispoti : They threw you into the deep end right away.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : Yeah, I was 24. So I was a sponge. I was working 60-hour weeks without really having any problem. The office was our very first apartment, a 580 square feet apartment in Mexico City, where if I went back on my chair, I would fall in my bed.

Anthony Codispoti : So you’re this young guy. You’ve got a good background in food tech, but no experience in supply chain, which is really the position that they hired you for. And then, since, like you said, you’re the conduit, like you’re handling construction teams and real estate concerns. And I mean, you become the guy for all kinds of things that you didn’t have any prior background in.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : So yeah, I had tremendous mentors along the way. The very first one, my boss, Mike Brito, who was a Cuban American, actually a Cuban born American citizen that moved from Cuba at the age of 15. He was a tremendous boss, a great teacher. He is the godfather of my first child. So we became very, very close. He taught me early on how to go about time management, how to be assertive, how to be able to prioritize things, how it didn’t matter what position you had. It was important to treat anybody and everybody with respect.

He told me you have to always talk to the number one guy or lady so that the likelihood of success of your meeting is higher. So I learned a lot from him. And I was just a bunch of the time because I didn’t know anything.

I took everything at heart. I’m a good student. I was very fortunate to have an incredible boss. I got to tell you an anecdote which shows how driven he was. After the six months, my first performance review was happening.

And I picked him up at the airport in the company car that was worth more than my annual salary in Mexico, by the way. And I remember having a binder with a lot of information about all of the accomplishments that I had got over the last six months. And I got samples of cheese and samples of bombs. And as soon as he jumped in the car, I gave him the binder.

This is everything that we have accomplished. He didn’t even open the binder. He threw it in the back. And he said, Jose Carlos, that’s my name. He says, tell me what you can do. What you haven’t been able to accomplish so I can help you. That’s why I’m here.

I’m not interested in what you have accomplished. That’s what you’re getting paid for. Make use of my time.

That afternoon was my performance review. I didn’t know what to expect after that comment, obviously. The first 15 minutes, he couldn’t stop raving about me. He gave me the greatest increase. He said that he had never done, given that particular increase to anybody that young, that quick. But then the next hour and a half, he talked about time management, about assertiveness, about you need to strategize.

You need to stratify all of your suppliers. Only very few, about 20% of them you have to spend an hour with. The majority of them, maybe 50% of them 30 minutes, 70.

I mean, 30 to 40% of them maybe 15 minutes and that’s it. I was lucky enough to have a great teacher and because I didn’t have any preconceived notions of what needed to be done, I was assimilating as much as I could.

Anthony Codispoti : Like you said, you were in sponge mode. Correct. I’m curious to hear in those early days when you were setting up the supply chain for McDonald’s and everything has to be domestically sourced. What was the most interesting or challenging thing you ran into when you were trying to set up that supply chain?

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : That’s a really good question. So when McDonald’s entered Mexico, there was no free trade agreement. There was no GATT at the time. The hourly work mode did not exist. There was only full-time employees. Franchising didn’t exist. Mexico had to sign a joint venture partnership in which Mexican JV was the owner of 51% and 49% was McDonald’s.

As part of the original deal, McDonald’s could import the first equipment packages for the first five restaurants. But we had to pay 150% duty. And the commitment was that we would generate seven times that in exports. It didn’t matter what it was, you just needed to generate exports. Sounds easy, but when you know that an equipment package at the time was $800,000 times one and a half, that’s a couple of million times five, that’s $10 million times seven, that’s $70 million. What’s McDonald’s supposed to export?

We’ve been already on an export. So I became an expert on sesame seeds, on strawberries, on coffee beans. So I was dealing with things that I probably wouldn’t have to deal with in the past. But it made me very proud eventually to know that 60% to 70% of sesame seeds had been bought from Mexico. That a lot of strawberries were being used on the strawberry topping, that coffee beans were being exported. So I felt very honored to have had the opportunity to generate that kind of business relationship to comply with the Mexican government, but also help the Mexican industry. So that’s interesting.

Anthony Codispoti : So is it McDonald’s who was actually exporting the sesame seeds and the strawberries?

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : No, we’re generating them, right? Because McDonald’s had suppliers in the US and McDonald’s say, hey, listen, I need you to buy this many tons of sesame seeds from Mexico. I need you to buy this from there. So it was a symbiotic relationship. Obviously the specifications needed to be complied with. But that was really a very fascinating part of the business that I did not understand. But I had to meet with a US ambassador, a Temexer, which at the time was John Gavin, a former actor, who put me in contact with his commercial attaché, who I gave him a list of the suppliers that we had in the US. And I said, just tell me who has a footprint in Mexico. But I thought it would be easier for me if Kraft was supplying cheese in the US for me to go to Kraft, Mexico, and see if they could do the same. And that’s how we started.

Anthony Codispoti : It’s a rather clever idea on the part of the Mexican government to work that into the deal, right? To open up some doors to have business kind of flow the other direction.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : I mean, they knew McDonald’s could do it. And by doing it, generated incredible business opportunities for a lot of people, right?

Anthony Codispoti : No. So, okay, so you worked in this position, very first employee in Mexico. How did that position unfold over the next several years?

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : So I was hired by McDonald’s Corporation. And once we had five restaurants and we had four partners, John Venture Partners, McDonald’s decided that they were going to open a subsidiary, but it was going to be owned and operated by the partners.

It was no longer going to be a McDonald’s owned company. And I wrote my letter of resignation. And I talked to Mike and I told him, Mike, I joined this company because I wanted the opportunity to grow. I told you that I was interested in moving to the US.

I joined McDonald’s Corporation because of the opportunities that he could afford me. I can’t stay in Mexico. I can’t report to four different bosses.

How am I going to prioritize? He let me talk. Then I said, I’m going to be giving my letter of resignation to Pat Flynn, the president of Latin America, that was actually in Mexico at that time. I met with him, told him what I’m telling you, and he read my letter of resignation and said, but he let me talk about it and then said, how would you like to move to the US and be the international quality assurance manager for Latin America?

Anthony Codispoti : So he made sure you weren’t leaving, gave you an offer you couldn’t refuse.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : Exactly. So my lesson there was you just can’t not speak up. You have to let your wishes know. Now, I was very respectful and I said, I’m going to give you six months because I really don’t want all of this effort to go to waste, but I am not staying. And so they offered us to move to Chicago. This is something that Deborah and I always wanted because at the time Mexico was under high inflationary economy, 180% inflation. We had to change menu prices on a weekly basis.

I mean, it was just crazy. You couldn’t afford a house because there was no mortgage business. So we always wanted to move to the US and Deborah being an American four generation American one in Mexico, she had the opportunity to move to the US. So we moved to the US with $10,000 in our pocket that were our life savings and our car career spaniel. And I started traveling within a week of moving here. And I was in charge of quality assurance for Latin America for about two years when Mike retired. And I thought, this is my opportunity. Mike is the staff director of purchasing and quality control for Latin America.

Anthony Codispoti : You thought you were a shoe in for that role?

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : I said, who else has the experience that I have? I’ve been a purchasing manager in Mexico. I’m a food tech. I’m the QA manager for all of Latin. At the time I had, obviously, proficiency in Spanish, English was getting better, and I had learned Portuguese.

So I said, it’s a slam dunk for Brazil. I was told that I was too young that I needed to grow some white hairs. At the time they could say that today would get them in a little bit of a trouble, but they did. I was only 27. So a gentleman was brought in, a gentleman that had white hairs and had a lot more experience. Him and I just did not work together well. And I had a hell of a year, a year and a half. And I was about to put my resignation again when he was let go and somebody else was brought in.

I thought it was my chance again and that didn’t happen. So that’s when we took a lateral move and we moved to Southern California. They were looking for a Hispanic purchasing manager that could handle purchasing for LA San Diego and Hawaii.

I was it. Quite frankly, I wasn’t too excited about being a purchasing manager for a region after being the purchasing manager of a country. Little did I know that it was very different. First, I wish I had done it backwards. I wish I had been a purchasing manager in the U.S. and a region to understand the systems, the availability of talent that it says. I would be able to draw on experiences from different people that I didn’t have when I was in Mexico.

Anthony Codispoti : The framework there was just more developed. Correct. It was very different.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : So I did that and I was managing purchases for goods and services for about a million dollars a day for about a thousand restaurants. LA San Diego and Hawaii. And I thought I had arrived. Little did I know that I was just really beginning. At that time is when I said I really want to be an officer of the company. Did not know what that was, what that meant.

But I liked the cars they drove and the clothes they wore. So I set my goal as I want to be an officer of the company. And I spoke to Mike and I spoke to Pat and I spoke to a lot of people. And it was clear to me that if I wanted to improve my chances, I needed to leave supply chain and jump into operations.

At the time, there were about 40 officers with an operations background and only one senior VP in supply chain. So the writing was on the wall. I needed to get the experience that comes.

I mean, the stars and stripes that come from working at the restaurants. But I also knew that it would be better if they asked me than if I asked them. At the time, they were looking for minority leadership. They were looking for women, Latinos, Asian Americans, African Americans to get the experience in operations. So they asked me and I left everything, put the short sleeve and went down eight positions in the Orchard and started as a manager trainee.

Anthony Codispoti : So you went from kind of being, you know, in the ivory tower, so to speak, not really, but

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : I felt so because I was managing a million dollars.

Anthony Codispoti : And you went down eight pay scales now and you got the short sleeves and you’re in the front line now.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : So, but let me be clear. My salary was not touched, but I was not going to get a promotional increase until I got back to the department head level that I had at the time.

Anthony Codispoti : Okay. So they wanted you to work and earn your way up through those ranks, the operational ranks. They weren’t going to make you take a financial hit to do that because they saw the path that you were on. They just, they needed you to get that.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : I couldn’t afford to do that. So I was a manager trainee, second assistant, first assistant manager. I ran a restaurant for over a year, was a supervisor and operations manager and eventually was managing. Once I got back after three and a half years, I was a multi department head in charge of about a hundred company owned restaurants, training HR and operations, about a $200 million business.

Anthony Codispoti : I just want to hit pause for a second, JC, because I want to ask how this move affected your ego. Little bit.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : I laugh now because three and a half years sounds very easy because if it’s in one paragraph in the book.

Anthony Codispoti : Right.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : But that’s over a thousand days that I had to go on months. Yeah. So I’ll give you a couple of things. It was one, one Saturday evening, actually, Sunday morning, 2am when I was cleaning toilets at the restaurant. That all of a sudden I felt this funny feeling of doubt. What am I doing? I remember calling Deborah at two o’clock in the morning. I said, Deb, can you remind me what it is that I’m doing?

Why am I doing this? So she’s very smart and she’s, Hey, this is, you have to do this, your pen your dues, you’re getting the experience. It is important. My mom, God, this was tough. I went to the best school in Mexico, Technológico de Monterrey, which is an offshoot of the MIT, let’s say. And they made a lot of sacrifices for me to go there. So for her to see me flick hamburgers after the education they paid, it was just not comprehensible. She chastised me more than once. She hung up the phone, not once, but twice. She, I said, Mom, I need to learn the business from the ground up. I remember her saying, well, can’t they just tell you how it is?

And we can’t just read about it. It was not until I became president of McDonald’s Mexico years later that I was with a whole entourage. And we had guards and armored cars and that she understood that the sacrifices will finally world worth it. But it was, it was very difficult on my ego. I doubted more than once that I was doing the right thing.

Anthony Codispoti : So it was three and a half years after that that you kind of got to a point where, I don’t know, you felt like you were more at a level that you had left before? Correct.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : But now I have the stars and stripes that come from working at the restaurant level, right? No. And I had, I happened to hit Los Angeles region at the right time. We were having difficulty hiring highly educated Latinas for the same reason. So we started an internship program and we succeeded. And we had 1995 was one of the best years, if not the best year in the operation side for the company on restaurants.

There were 138 profit centers around the country, 25 restaurants each. And we had four of them in LA, not really five. And we ranked them at the top 16 in sales. But we ranked number one, two, three, four and five in profitability. So we had a tremendous year, mostly due to two things. One is that we were able to hire highly educated people that had the opportunity to grow within the system. And this is going to sound a little self-serving, but the fact that I had just gone through the restaurant training, my experience at the restaurant level was so fresh that I knew I kept the log on frustrations for restaurant managers, because I knew I was going to be in a position to save or solve them. But I know that if I didn’t write them, I would forget them.

Very smart. So that allowed me to make changes that I knew were necessary, but that people that had been at the restaurant level 20 years before couldn’t see it. Also allowed me to identify staff that had a lot of potential that was missed because of language proficiency. LA had about 40 to 50% Latino first generation employees that English was not their first language. So while they were performing at a high level, their opportunities for growth were not given because nobody could communicate with them.

Anthony Codispoti : So did you put some sort of a language program in place to help these folks?

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : Absolutely. The language has been given accolades. I did not create that, but the need for giving the opportunity for our staff to learn the language is important.

Anthony Codispoti : So what came next?

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : I was then managing this business of about $200 million worth of business, and I felt a little uncomfortable because I was making financial decisions of great importance, maybe reinvestments of $20 to $30 million a year, and I really did not have any financial training. Well, I knew how to read basic P &L information. I needed some financial training, so I just added that I need to get an MBA. And here’s once again where luck is a dividend of sweat, but also is intersection of preparation with opportunity. I wanted to go to USC because my dad had gone to USC, and when I saw the program that could allow me to keep on working in the Executive MBA, it was $69,000 a year.

I couldn’t afford it. And this is in what year? This is 1995. Wow.

Today is 90, by the way. I couldn’t. So I went reluctantly to UCLA. It was about the same, and then I went to UC Northridge, and then by the time I got to a place that I can afford, I couldn’t even understand which the university was.

So I felt I needed to wait until I could afford to pay for it. Luck, once again. I was asked to pick up a senior executive that had spent time in Europe that wanted to come and help the company on restaurants do better. And when I picked them up at the airport, the very first thing he says is, JC, you need to help me find a couple of Hispanic MBAs. That we can take them through the training program that we just got you through in three to five years to be directors of operations. And I remember asking, so what does an MBA bring that we don’t have? Well, the financial document, the strategic thinking. And I said, well, but wouldn’t it be more difficult to find somebody that has those skill sets and trying to Madonna lies them?

Wouldn’t it be easier to have somebody that has ketchup in their veins already and get them that training? He said, well, do you know of anybody? Do I know of anybody? He said, I do. Well, I’m here.

He says, well, what do you know about MBAs? Luck would have it. I had my briefcase at the time.

I carry a briefcase and I had a pseudo spreadsheet that I put together on all of the programs. And he says, which is the best one? So USC, what keeps you from going to USC? $69,000 a year. He says, without hesitation, he says, I’ll tell you what, if you can get into USC, I’ll sponsor you. Wow.

Anthony Codispoti : So I was, how did you put it? Luck is the intersection of preparation and opportunity. Correct. So you were prepared. Correct. And the opportunity presented itself.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : But I could have also said, okay, I’ll hire two people. It would have been easy for me to say that. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti : And he would have hired them. But this was a way for you to kind of spin the conversation

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : around and say, I think it would be easier to go out of direction. Remember that I wanted to be an officer of the company because I had the opportunity to put a goal so far out. I was not blinded by paradigms of short-term thinking. I would not have gone into the operations training if I had not set my goal to be an officer. It would have made no sense.

Right? Getting an MBA would have been okay. But he had much more meaning because I said, well, now I have ops. Now I have international. Now I have supply chain. Now I have QA.

What if I have the financial argument that they’re talking about? I thought it was going to be another box to check, so to speak. So I was actually at the hospital right next to Deborah who was having contractions because Carlos, our third child, was being born. And I was filling out with the application for USC right at the hospital bed. I was accepted and I did my MBA at USC while I was the multi-department head in charge of the McDonald’s company on residence. In the middle of it, I was promoted to director of operations.

Now the second in command in the region, just a step below an officer. And they offered me the opportunity to go back to Mexico. But at the time they offered me to go as the second in command, but they had just recently sent a Canadian as president. But the Canadian did not speak a word of English, I mean of Spanish.

And I felt a little amici. I said, I’m going to become an interpreter and I don’t think I want to do that. I used my MBA that I was not finished as of yet as a cushion.

I said, let me finish the MBA and then we can talk. So that gave him the opportunity to either learn Spanish or get somebody else to do the translation for him. When I finished, they came back and they offered me the opportunity to go back to Mexico as the second in command with a promise that within 12 to 18 months I would become president of McDonald’s Mexico. So I went in February of 1998 and in May I became the first Mexican president of the Mexican company. First employee and 12 years later, now 14 years later, I was the first Mexican president, which allowed me to have a story of opportunity that nobody told me. People didn’t have to imagine it, they were looking at it. I opened restaurant number one and restaurant number 250 years later.

Anthony Codispoti : You know, and one of the things I really like about your story, JC, is that, you know, a lot of times we think in life, our curve is just going to be kind of up and to the right. And, you know, your story was you were going up and to the right, but then you realized to really get to where you wanted to, you were going to have to kind of take a call it a backward step, right?

You were cleaning toilets at 1am. Yeah. And so, you know, I think a lot of times people get wrapped up in their heads like, oh, like, you know, I lost my job here or this opportunity, this business didn’t work out. It feels like it would be taking a step backwards. It’s beneath me to do this thing here. Sometimes just, you know, doing that thing is going to open up a new set of doors for you. And like, that’s clearly what happened in your story.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : No question, Anthony. But I really think that two factors were of great influence. One, Deborah, that always kept me sane and always kept me grounded. And the fact that I was able to set my goals, I want to be an officer of the company because I was able to dream big long term.

Really, my blinders were taking off. Anytime I talk to anybody that wants to be mentored, I told them the very first thing you have to do is set your goals, but not five years out there, 10, 20 years out there. Because that will allow you to then really make the changes that you need. The road to success is a tall road.

Is that a freeway? And you have to pay your dues. But at the end of the day, it is well worth the sacrifice. But think about this, Anthony. What is there to celebrate if there’s nothing to accomplish?

Anthony Codispoti : If everything is going to be… If there’s no friction along the way, it doesn’t feel like people are coming.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : It just doesn’t feel like anything, right? Also, I learned early on that it was okay to be happy with what you had, but I can never be satisfied. There’s always something else to accomplish. Always another mountain to climb. Always another step to take, right?

Anthony Codispoti : How do you balance those two things, JC? Because I agree with you 100%. You want to be happy, right? You want to be like, hey, I love what I’m doing, the things I’ve accomplished. I feel good about those things, but you never want to be fully satisfied with that. You always want to be reaching for more. So how are you kind of balancing those two things? It’s not easy.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : You have to have very clear objectives. And if you know that you want to be an officer of the company, obviously I can make that decision by myself. Deborah had to be there. I’m not a subscriber that behind a great man is a great woman. My woman has never been behind me.

She’s always been either in front of me or by my side. smart man listen we she was my girlfriend when she was 12 and I was 13 so I know that’s the only woman I’ve ever known that we’ve been married we were steady for 11 years and been married for over 40 so so the balance is tricky but you have to stay true to your values you have to stay true to your goals and then make sacrifices

Anthony Codispoti : what are your values I understand your goals so

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : very early on once again this was another mentor of mine Pat Flynn who was also a great executive with McDonald’s that I had the luxury of working for he said do you need to define what your values are because if you if you have values and you live by them you are a lot easier to forecast a lot easier to read and people cannot follow people that cannot be read so that’s a journey on I have I wrote them integrity honesty positive attitude belief courage excellence persistence and responsibility but every place I went from the time that I became the president of McDonald’s Mexico to when I came to the US and was a managing a region or the chief supply chain officer or president of Latin I sent a memo my very first memo ever in any new position was what I expect from you and you can expect from me and it was a list of my values an explanation below those values and an expectation that that’s what I expected people from had and the leaders that I learned the most from were not necessarily the ones that lived by those values were the ones that talked about those values but didn’t live those values and to me what you do is so loud that I can hear what you’re saying let me repeat that what you do is so loud that I can’t hear what you’re saying people that would talk but do something different see and to me well I’m integrity is number one how strong are your values and principles that you are willing to defend them at all costs and hey listen I I haven’t printed on a little card that I that I gave to everybody and I keep it handy because anytime that I had a decision that was requiring a little more thought I always use my values and principles as a screen and because the closer I could be to those values that I had regurgitated so many times and people know that I had and people were carrying under pocket sometimes the more transparency I project the more authenticity that people can’t see in that leader right

Anthony Codispoti : yeah I like this message it kind of reminds me of a lesson that I try hard to tell teach my little boys which is you know there are gonna be some people in our lines that are examples of what to do right they’re gonna be a good example of that behavior I want to follow and there are some people that we can still be grateful for as being a living example of what we don’t want to do yeah yeah and it sounds like people who do so loud that I you know I can’t hear what you’re saying

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : absolutely and and I don’t subscribe to the notion that you have two sets of values ones are your personal values and the other one are your professional values either you have values or you don’t that’s why one of the most difficult things for me to do was to trust the leader when they had broken their vows to their spouses because to me if you’re willing to cheat on your spouse what are you not willing to do so I struggled a lot with a lot of great leaders that I admired when they had those mishaps and I would lose a lot of respect for them and I could not longer follow them with the intensity that it that I did in the past because if you don’t think that your personal values have anything to do with your professional values just ask like your woods he couldn’t win the tournament after his personal values were violated right because he messed up his mind why because you’re having more you don’t have them

Anthony Codispoti : that’s powerful so I want to get to be in true cha and what you’re doing kind of modern day but there’s still a few more stops along the way with McDonald’s

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : oh absolutely so I was still not an officer of the company but I happened to hit Mexico at the right time Mexico changed the power from 72 years of the ruling party into a right-wing party a former Coca-Cola exec took the reins and Mexico grew 7.8% GDP so there was nothing we could do wrong we double sales in three years and triple profits in Mexico so people were talking about JC like I had done something spectacular I really didn’t we had great economy and an incredible team that we were able to put together that helped us accomplish that so I moved to the US now as an officer of the company my first role as an officer and I was in charge of eight countries in Latin America I had Colombia Bolivia Peru with Hawaii Paraguay Venezuela and I’m missing one I can’t remember Achille and I did that for about a year and then I was tired of traveling and my kids were getting into high school and I really wanted to be there to stop missing some of the things that I was missing and I asked for a move and within two weeks I was a regional vice president in Chicago managing a business of about a billion four seven hundred and twenty restaurants and now in the backyard of McDonald’s here was where you need to bring your dancing shoes because I had come from Mexico where I had a great trajectory but my boss visited me three times one to check the plan two to give us accolades and third to go hunting with our partners to go duck hunting so the oversight was very minimal because things were great and in Chicago I was running I thought I was running the region Monday to Friday but over the weekend all of the officers were running my region so it was a great opportunity to be on stage but it was rather taxing but I was able to once again I hit Chicago at a really tough time Chicago I had had well the entire US I had had a couple of years of negative comparable sales we set our goals our region was called the greater Chicago region my goal was 10 over 10 equals one greater Chicago region 10% comp one year over 10% comp the next year when your total sales are a billion three 10% it’s a little stretch but we got about six and about seven the next year so we went from negative to that I called that a real success I knew that we’re not going to get to the 10 over 10 but I knew early on that sometimes leadership needs to be a little irrational to rally the troops to think out of the box right I told them we’re going to close 100 competitors we close to 124 so I had that opportunity and then a real struggle they wanted me to go back to supply chain the franchisees were having doubts about the value of supply chain they thought the suppliers were getting exorbitant profits there was not a lot transparency so they wanted me to go back to supply chain they thought that with the experience that I had on the field I would be able to to do this but they told me you can make the decision you want to stay in Chicago stay there but we want you to do this the third time they asked me the same thing I said I’m in let’s go I didn’t want to leave the I mean I had left the support department of supply chain to be on the line to get the P &L responsibility so I really hesitated because I thought it would truncate my potential growth so I became the chief purchasing officer in the US eventually US and Canada now managing $11 billion a year probably the most challenging position of all that I had but the most rewarding because there was a lot of responsibility but I was able to draw on a lot of my experiences from supply chain international I mean in Mexico in the US from my ops training from my closeness to franchisees in LA then in Chicago to my recent experience in Mexico with high inflationary economies that allow me to see things that supply chain was not seen we were not hedging commodities at the time because at the end of the day it’s not McDonald’s money that is buying this supplies they’re the franchisees so we put together programs in which we open our some of our negotiations with suppliers to some of the franchisees and we put together a group of franchisees that saw more than they used to see a group of suppliers that were involved and engaged in other things that were impacting the system as a whole and we started hedging commodities you may recall that McDonald’s was on the dollar menu for eight years beef used to be priced on a weekly basis how can we expect franchisees to vote on a program to have a plan for a dollar double cheeseburger when you don’t know what the meat your number one item on the food cost is going to be priced next week so we had to somehow protect it so we started the very first ever 254 million dollar hedge on me where over 50 contracts because we didn’t want to shark the market we didn’t do it to save money we did it to be able to provide predictable competitive pricing but if franchisees know the price of meat is now locked for the next year now they said I’m in right we were able to get on it for eight years Wendy’s had to drop out because they didn’t have those protections today McDonald’s has hedges on tomatoes on fuel on corn so

Anthony Codispoti : this is pretty standard now but

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : back there is it was but it was it was it was a brand new I remember talking to one of our Treasury folks that became a very good friend of mine I said so tell me about our risk strategy they said well it’s easy we don’t take any risks I said coming from where I come from in Mexico if we don’t protect it the fries that we buy from Canada because eventually Mexico opened to the GATT and the free trade agreement I says will hurt we bring toys from China we don’t protect against the E1 the valuation or valuation on on the on what it costs our toys to be brought in we got a problem so that experience allowed me to see the value of hedging to protect not necessarily to save right we were able to avoid as much as a hundred million dollars a year which for a franchisee you’re looking at 70 I think the million dollars was about 73 dollars a store for every million dollars so do the math

Anthony Codispoti : that’s pretty impressive and there’s a lot more stories here that we could tell about you and the McDonald’s days but I want to make sure that we give some voice to what you’re doing now today so how did the transition from McDonald’s into the intrusion some of your consulting work coming

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : so after what I did in supply chain I was president of Latin and then I did my last dentist the chief global CSR sustainability diversity and inclusion and philanthropy officer and I ran Ronald McDonald health charities when my boss then CEO Don Thompson to whom I had reported directly for 10 years in different positions and now that he was retiring I texted Debra and I said Don is retiring and so am I people quit people people don’t quit companies and I couldn’t see me reporting to anybody else other than Don Don the man of principle very transparent leader great family man faith man I’m not a very religious man but I value people that have that conviction and I was 60 I was 55 at the time my guys have been so good to us that I was able to to retire I announced my retirement in March and I retired in December of 2015 I have no regrets McDonald’s was great and they continued to do great things for us I I set up a small consulting firm helping minority owned businesses go through the McDonald’s gridlock and I was visiting a restaurant in Geneva I live in the western suburbs of Chicago in St. Charles and it was called being through Chabien through Ches a somebody in Mexican slang that is on on top of his game I was always impressed by the fact that the owners were always in the back the food was very authentic the flavors very unique and the owners in the back because I was always looking at the kitchen they came out as a second I help you I introduced myself and because they’re Mexican I’m Mexican we we stroke a relationship I told that I thought he needed to expand they were not they really didn’t know how I told him that they should probably buy the property that was right next to it that was empty unfortunately the lady wanted too much money for it but eventually they bought a property right next door and they started a new concept and I was helping them just as a advisor without just as a friend when they heard that I was leaving McDonald’s they approached me and they wanted to create a new concept that was less labor intensive that these two restaurants that they had at the time full service restaurants with with waiters and buzzers and dishwashers and all this to something that was more fast cash flow less labor intensive that could be more replicable and I convinced them to sell me a portion of what they had so that we could start there and then see how this would progress I joined them in 2016 when we started we opened two more restaurants in Naperville and we just recently opened this new concept of more replicable the pandemic got in between that’s why you took us as long as it did but now we have a commissary where we can produce most of the ingredients in-house deliver on a daily basis and the kitchen only needs to heat it up we make tortillas in-house on the premises so now this more replicable model we think that we can grow a lot faster and now we have the capacity and the commissary to supply maybe half a dozen restaurants if need be we’re we sign at least for a second one and we’re looking for others

Anthony Codispoti : so the the advantage of the commissary is that you can more efficiently prep food for the multiple locations than you could if you were to try to set up all that food prep at each of the individual locations

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : however it hasn’t been easy Anthony because my partners are greedy artists and when I individuality I was coming from a single brand standardized menu it took us about three years to say hey we have three restaurants that serve Mexican food can we at least get those three to serve the same menu so that we can then have the economies of scale and prepare some of those ingredients in some worlds now we have that we didn’t have them now this new concept will have the same name the same menu so that definitely the the commissary serves several purposes one is standardization of purchases standardization of quality and recipes and also then takes a lot of the initial investment out of the restaurant because now you don’t need to cook you only need to prep right

Anthony Codispoti : and so which of the concepts because you have several which of the concepts is the one that you’re sort of focusing on now that

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : is called sweet chilango a chilango is a name that is given to somebody that is born in Mexico City and we did it sweet chilango sweet chill and go sort of I like that funny name all of our names I’m telling you one of our partners all of them are very I have a lot of ingenuity but the names are very whimsical is the entruches somebody is on top of his game the second one is at Toda madre which is freaking great the third one is Cuba was up and then San Tocino good heavens and now sweet chilango sweet chilango so

Anthony Codispoti : I like it and so what’s the dining experience that is sweet chilango

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : and so sweet chilango is more of a fast cash so you order all on an app which is a little difficult for some of us all folks so we need to train our older consumers to do this because everything is done on an app either the front counter or from the table and the food is brought to you and then you can order from the table a lot of our orders are to go obviously and now having the commissary is going to allow us to then maybe do some retailing starting at the restaurants we have frozen burritos we have a virtual brand that we came out of during the pandemic that is called little donkeys a little donkey is a burrito that’s a direct translation so we have those frozen you can take home we make salsa’s now we’re bottling them you can take home so we think that the commissary is definitely something that is going to give us much more flexibility into the future

Anthony Codispoti : and do you see providing those prepared foods at like grocery stores

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : in the future so we may it’s a little more complicated because you need to have capacity right now what we need is to fill it up with our own restaurants and eventually think about expansion and do that but yeah absolutely why not well we have some of our best sellers people ask for them when they come to our restaurants are a ski this which is the chart of corn kernels with some cream and some lime and it’s just phenomenal which is a dish that is very much consumed in Mexico on the streets they serve them on polystyrene cups at night for you to keep warmth it’s just people want it you

Anthony Codispoti : know JC you said something earlier I kind of want to go back to this success is a toll road it’s not a freeway in that spirit one of my favorite questions to ask is always about a serious challenge that you’ve overcome what was it how’d you get through it what did you learn coming out the other side

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : so one of them was my own internal fight right with my ego we all have egos some of us bigger than others and it was very difficult not only that instance that I talked to you about it it was three years that I was out there and that I felt that I was under the microscope not only because the high ranking officers were looking at me for potential growth but my peers will get a why is he getting this special treatment so I had to ace all of the courses I had to ace I’m a university I had to always excel so I put a lot of pressure on myself that I shouldn’t have I should have been more vulnerable I should have allowed others to to see my weaknesses early on it was easier for me to open up once I had arrived because I had been exposed to so many disciplines I knew a little bit about everything but not a lot of anything so that forced me to rely on my people for me to delegate responsibility with authority I think that was a a transition that was very easy for me but that leadership style is very much needed is very much appreciated by people because it allows you as the employee to grow not only as a professional but also as a person because if this is thing to do is to do what you’re told the most difficult thing to do is to find somebody telling what needs to be done and get away and let them figure out how to do it and do it and do it better than you did another challenge was I’m a trust but I always trusted people intrinsically and I’ve heard in the past that you need to trust but verify I learned it the hard way I’ll tell you what I can in one of my positions I had an employee that was extremely revered as you have to keep this guy this is the best that can happen rely on him because he is your right hand man it was my CFO in one of my roles and long story short we found out that he was embezzling money and the tough lesson for me was that I had to suspend them without letting anybody know I took a lot of criticism but during the investigation you can’t say anything we ended up prosecuting and convicting I lost a lot of sleepless nights over this because I fell for the employee but I also thought that it was important to set the the lit by the values right but I struggled with that so I I had to grab this and read it integrity integrity what you what you do is louder than what you say so I can hear what you’re saying so the

Anthony Codispoti : struggle for you in that one JC was the impact that was having on this person as an individual

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : well it was a friend of mine yeah you ruin his life well he ruined his life

Anthony Codispoti : I understand but you feel like you’re having a hand in this

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : just not not easy to do but if I had not had this I don’t know what would have happened

Anthony Codispoti : that gave you sort of the the the framework or their mold

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : I know what I have to do after the area I just need to go through the process yeah

Anthony Codispoti : I know make it easy but I I knew what needed to be done there was no doubting my mind

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : but it was a struggle nevertheless yeah

Anthony Codispoti : the the first challenge that you talked about sort of struggling with the ego what kind of coming through that and looking back what what’s the advice that you would give to somebody else kind of looking to make their way up in their own career right now kind of based on those learnings and those experiences you had

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : always have a long-term view know that while the shorter distance between two points is the straight line the road to success is not a straight line and you have to many times take a step back to jump two steps up and and it’s okay to be proud but you need to be humble.

Anthony Codispoti : J.C. I’ve just got one more question for you but before I ask it I want to do two things first of all everyone listening today I’m gonna invite you to hit the follow button on your favorite podcast out continue to get more great interviews like we’ve had here today with J.C. J.C. I also want to let people know the best way to either get in touch with you directly or to continue to follow your story or that at the end Trucha and all the other things that you’re working on.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : Sure I don’t know if you have a way to share my LinkedIn profile or my sure do GM integrity profile I just recently published my book which is my story if you want to know more about it it just came out on Amazon. What’s the name of the book? My way to the American Dream.

Anthony Codispoti : And this is like an autobiography.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : This is my autobiography this is this now I’m not a writer and my original intent was to write it for my children or my grandchildren to have their story but as I started digging into the history of my family I got an amour with it and I wrote 80 pages of the story I have 10 generations in here which is fascinating to me I mean family may not be due you but there’s my entire life up to last year.

Anthony Codispoti : That’s impressive to be able to find your lineage that far back.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : Yeah it is and I had to stop because I’m not it would have been a genealogy book.

Anthony Codispoti : That’s great it’s just been an interesting one.

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : In Spanish then translated into English it’s available in both languages.

Anthony Codispoti : Okay we have to look at Amazon for the title in English or in Spanish. That’s terrific anywhere else folks can find it just published on Amazon for the more. Okay great we’ll include those links in the show notes. Okay so last question for you JC so you’ve had a long and historic career McDonald’s decided it was time to move on from that now you’re doing some consulting and you’re helping the folks at the Intrucha what do you think the next few years look like for you in a professional capacity?

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : So I’ve always thought that the price of leadership is responsibility so I have been involved in not-for-profit boards for my entire career. I’ve sat on at least a dozen from the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation to the Marian Jury Rehab Center to the National Council of La Raza to the Council of the Americas. I was in the corporate board of advisors of the Marshall School of Business at USC for 10 years. Today I’m the chairman of the board of Roosevelt University’s Board of Trustees.

I’ve been there for five years. I also sit on the board of Northwestern Medicine, a conglomerate of 11 hospitals in Chicago. I sit on the board of the World Human Foundation another organization that fights for everybody’s opportunities. I sit on the board of TICE which is a quick service restaurant operator of today a few Popeyes in Alabama, Georgia and Florida. I was elected to another board of a privately held company that I can’t talk to as of yet. So I’m very involved with my family spending as much time as I can with them and I’m as busiest I want to be not as busy as I could be Anthony. My wife always tells me that I am not retired. I am because I do what I want when I want. I was in Cancun last week we’re going back in two weeks. I couldn’t do that when I was at McDonald’s.

Anthony Codispoti : I was I feel like there’s something we haven’t really given voice to yet and I want to do it here as we wrap up because you talk about some of the boards that you sit on and one of the last positions that you held at McDonald’s it’s clear to me that you’re not just a guy who’s about sort of money and his own personal development like the comment you just made like fighting for the rights of others like where does this sense of responsibility do you think come from?

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : My mom as well as Deborah. Deborah is a physical therapy by training by the age of 14. She was giving treatment to a child with PCI at the age of 14. We have been Deborah and I opened the first Ronald McDonald House in Mexico. She started the first children’s volunteer program around the world for Ronald McDonald House charities. We sat on the board of RMA CNLA in Mexico in Chicago. I was the president CEO in global. My mom was always very instrumental in standing in us the fact that while to whom he has much given is expected from that much. She was always helping others and I learned a lot you’ll read in my book if you read it how she helped a lot of people that we did not know until she passed and then people came as a hey by the way I owe this that your mom gave me I owe this and did you know that she did that so that that has always helped us and I think we have been very lucky because our children are also very given our middle daughter is this bilingual special ed teacher our son works for a homeless shelter so it’s Deborah has been on the board of RMAC forever that’s here in Chicago so not anymore but I think it comes from my mom and the fact that we have in student our family anytime we have a family reunion my brother sisters we go to our Ronald house and serve dinner for Thanksgiving or Christmas and it’s 30 of us it’s quite a few of us so it has been embedded in all of us if you were to ask any of our family members not only that my children grandchildren or in-laws we always look for the opportunity to to help others why my inclination to help Latinos is obvious but the reason why I left USC is bored to sit on Roosevelt University because the procedure that the proceeds of USC you understand and it was because Roosevelt University was founded 80 years ago based on the notion of equality and inclusion anybody and everybody is welcome 30% of our students are Latino 25 African American most of them a great majority women I thought that my impact there would be much greater that anything I could do at USC so we love doing what we do and once again the price of leadership is responsibility

Anthony Codispoti : I think that’s a beautiful message to end today’s interview on JC I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today really appreciate

JC Gonzalez-Mendez : it Anthony it’s been a pleasure anything I can do

Anthony Codispoti : folks that’s a wrap on another episode of the inspired stories podcast thanks for learning with us today