The National CIO Review: Issue II.IX Hooters CIO, Karen Bird

Q&A: Karen Bird, Chief Information Officer for Hooters: Pursuing Technology Initiatives in Infrastructure, Food Delivery Partnerships, and Hiring to Drive Restaurant Success

By: H. Michael Burgett

Karen Bird, Chief Information Officer for Hooters, has spent time in both finance and technology roles before reaching her current position. This background provided her with the skills and leadership expertise to manage technology functions in order to improve restaurant operations and overall customer experience. As the leading technology executive at her organization, her leadership and insights are vital to operational success.

We had the chance to sit down with Karen and talk about her career progression to CIO for Hooters, some of the initiatives she has overseen to date and her goals for future innovation. Her list of previous accomplishments is impressive, and Karen has plans for the future to continue to drive success for the Hooters brand. In this issue, Karen spoke with us regarding her key objectives and the importance of partnerships with her delivery service providers. 

In this issue, Karen spoke with us regarding her key objectives and the importance of partnerships with her delivery service providers. 

Karen Bird

Chief Information Officer

Hooters of America

Walk me through your CIO path. How did you decide to pursue a career in technology, and how did you progress to your current organization?

I started in accounting at Burger King, however, I always loved working with the IT folks in our corporate office across the street. Eventually I was offered a job in IT, and I took a position that supported all the regional accounting centers. That was the start of my technology career, and I never left it after that.

I would say that at that point in my career I didn’t necessarily aspire to be a CIO, but I did aspire to learn all that I could about every function in IT. I spent time in development, project management, database management, among others. After some time, I decided that I wanted to move into a leadership role.

I left Burger King to support that wish, and that’s when I went to Denny’s. I always set goals for myself, and once I determined that I wanted to be in a technology leadership role, I followed my goals to try to get to that point. It’s not always about moving straight up. Often, it’s about moving sideways and learning before you take that next step. That’s what I found to be successful in my career.

Would you consider yourself a CIO/CTO or a hybrid? Why? What are the essential differences?

I would say my role is a hybrid one. I do a lot of work on the CIO side, which is putting together information for the company. From a technology perspective, this digital world that we live in now drives the CTO side of any CIO’s position. I think my role is a combination of information and digital technology, plus the responsibility to act as a business leader.

My current role has been a great opportunity. My team and I are always focused on using technology to drive our business forward. As an example, we’re always looking at initiatives to drive the largest amount of revenue for the company, and most of those are technology initiatives.

What initiatives have you overseen to date in your time with your organization? What’s on the horizon?

When I first joined Hooters, we were just implementing our online ordering venture. Last year, we focused on online ordering, which took up the last half of my year.

Right now, we’re really focused on restaurant delivery. I’m sure you’ve been to some of our locations, you may have seen five delivery tablets sitting on the counter. We’ve taken the approach that if there’s a delivery service provider near a restaurant, we’re going to work with them.

One of the major initiatives I was able to oversee with our executive committee was the development of an enterprise integration program where we would build the API integration between the delivery service providers and our restaurants. That’s underway currently, and we’re getting ready to go into our first test store with those services. That will be exciting, because it will be a foundation for all of our future API integration, not just for delivery partnerships.

How do you foresee your institution being different in two years, and how do you see yourself shaping that change?

We just celebrated our 35th anniversary. Now, we’re preparing the company for the future, which includes the growth of the entire Hooters business. Part of our efforts will be looking at our current technology infrastructure and making decisions about what we need to do. Cloud-first will be our strategy going forward, but we also need to rebuild and replace some of the older systems so that we can support the things we talked about earlier. We need to make sure we have the foundation to support the big-picture initiatives we want to accomplish.

What new or disruptive technology issues or emerging trends do you think will impact your industry in the future?

I think we’re seeing exciting things happen with AI. The ability to monitor and track equipment in a restaurant is huge. The technology is getting to the point where it can monitor those tasks. I think AI will become a part of business in the future and we need to prepare for it.

Share your thoughts on the availability of IT talent. What strategies do you employ, and what’s different in your organization?

I think having the right people on the team is really important. I can’t do my job if ...............

[Click Below to Read Full Article]

The author, H. Michael Burgett has more than 25 years of experience in the technology sector. He is the founder of CIO Partners, a nationally recognized executive search firm with a niche in the technology sector specializing in top-level leadership engagements. He can be reached at [email protected].

To subscribe to future issues of The National CIO Review - visit www.nationalcioreview.com.