The Burger King Comeback Is a CEO Masterclass — and It Looks a Lot Like the Esteemed MBAi
By now, you've probably seen the video.
Tom Curtis, President of Burger King USA and Canada, bites into a Whopper with a wide, genuine, unscripted grin on his face. It went viral instantly — and not just because the burger looked good. It went viral because of what it represented: a leader who actually believes in what he's selling. The video was a direct, good-natured response to a similar moment from McDonald's CEO, whose bite into a Big Mac read more like a man being asked to eat his vegetables in front of the whole class.
But the video is just the surface. What Tom Curtis has been quietly doing to rebuild the Burger King brand is a graduate-level lesson in executive leadership — and if you've been through the Esteemed MBAi, the playbook will look immediately familiar.
At the Esteemed MBAi, we teach that every business leader has three fundamental responsibilities:
Visionary — You are in charge of the future.
Team Builder — You are in charge of surrounding yourself with A+ talent aligned to a shared vision.
Top Sales — You are responsible for staying in contact with your team and your customers, making sure they know they matter to you.
Tom Curtis has been living all three. Let's break it down.
I. Visionary: Ruthless Clarity on What You Are
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the company was 90 days from bankruptcy and drowning in complexity. His first move was to slash Apple's product line from over 35 products to four — two laptops, two desktops. That singular act of editing bought Apple the focus it needed to survive. Complexity, Jobs understood, is the enemy of excellence.
Tom Curtis arrived at Burger King with a similar diagnosis.
He reviewed the chain's operations and found two problems hiding in plain sight. First, the menu lacked consistency. Something as fundamental as building a cheeseburger was being done differently across the chain — one method stacked it burger-cheese, another went burger-burger-cheese-cheese. These weren't just quality-control issues; they were cultural ones. They signaled to every kitchen team that there was no single standard worth upholding.
Second — and this one is bold — Burger King had a hand-breaded chicken sandwich on the menu that required 21 steps to complete. Twenty-one steps. Curtis watched what was happening: cooking teams were spending so much time perfecting that chicken sandwich that the Whopper, the product that built the brand, the product people actually come for, was being compromised as a result.
His response? Off goes the chicken sandwich.
A visionary leader is not someone who adds — they are someone who clarifies. They know what the company is, what it's not, and they have the courage to act on that distinction. Tom Curtis looked at Burger King and said: we are a burger restaurant, and we will be the best burger restaurant. Everything else is noise.
II. Team Builder: Management by Wandering
Changing a menu is straightforward compared to what comes next: persuading over 7,000 independent franchisees, each with their own P&L, their own opinions, and their own experience of being largely ignored by corporate, to go along with it.
Rising food costs. Higher labor costs. A new operational playbook. A simplified menu. Hold the line on pricing. It's a tough ask.
Tom Curtis didn't manage this from a spreadsheet. He got in a car.
In the Esteemed MBAi, we call it Management by Wandering — the principle that your best insights and your best results come from being physically present with your people. Not on a Zoom call. Not through a KPI dashboard. In the building. Tom organized himself and his leadership team to visit as many franchisee locations as possible, walking the operations, understanding the pain points, and carrying the company's vision directly to the people who would have to execute it.
There's something powerful that happens when a franchise owner in Tulsa or Tampa sees the President of the company walk through their door. It communicates that the work matters, that the person doing the work matters, and that the vision being asked of them is something leadership is willing to show up for — not just send a memo about.
Management by wandering transforms leadership from a broadcast into a conversation. And conversations build alignment in ways that directives simply cannot.
III. Top Sales: Make Yourself Available
The third role — Top Sales — is perhaps the most underestimated by leaders at every level. It is not about selling a product. It is about making your people and your customers feel that they are seen, heard, and valued. It's a discipline of staying in contact and demonstrating that you care.
Tom Curtis took this to its logical extreme: he published his phone number.
Not his assistant's number. His number. He invited anyone — customers, franchisees, anyone — to call or text him directly with feedback about the Burger King experience.
What followed was a real-time brand audit unlike anything a consulting firm could deliver. He received over 42,000 calls and text messages from customers across the country. A recurring complaint: Burger King wraps its burgers in paper, which causes the bun to go limp and the burger to arrive squishy. Another message came from a resident of a small town in Georgia who had watched their local Burger King sign sit broken for years — a quiet signal that the company had stopped caring about their community.
Tom had that sign fixed.
That last story is worth sitting with. It wasn't a major operational decision. It wasn't a new product launch or a franchise agreement. It was a sign. But to that community, the broken sign was a symbol of being forgotten. And the fixed sign became something else entirely: evidence that someone was paying attention.
That is what Top Sales looks like. Not a call campaign. Not a customer satisfaction survey. A leader who makes himself available — and then does something with what he hears.
The Fundamentals Are Not Complicated. They Are Just Hard.
Burger King still has ground to cover. The fast-food burger market is competitive and the chain isn't at the top of the standings — not yet. But the trajectory is clear, and more importantly, the reason for the trajectory is clear.
It isn't an algorithm. It isn't a celebrity partnership or a viral menu item. It's leadership. It's a CEO who took a hard look at what the company was supposed to be, stripped away what wasn't serving that mission, went to see his people, and picked up the phone.
Be a visionary. Align your team. Let your people — and your customers — know they matter.
That's it. That's all it takes. It's just that simple.
It's the Esteemed way. Give it a spin — Be Esteemed.
