Key Takeaways
- Joe Jordan became Domino’s CEO on October 1 after nearly 15 years with the company.
- Jordan says he has done nearly every major job at Domino’s.
- He plans to simplify the company’s leadership structure and keep innovating.
Domino’s new CEO, Joe Jordan, stepped into the leadership role on October 1 after taking on nearly every major job within the franchise over the past 15 years.
Jordan arrived at Domino’s in 2011 as vice president of innovation and rose through the company’s marketing, operations and technology ranks before taking the CEO role.
According to The Wall Street Journal, many CEOs say the job feels different once they are the person in the corner office, no matter how much exposure they had to the role beforehand. Jordan told the Journal that he had received the same insight from trusted leaders who have been in the CEO seat.
“For how big my job is even right now, there was always someone…who is the step higher and the ultimate arbiter,” he said. “You become the ultimate arbiter that everyone else is looking at.”
Jordan’s priorities
Jordan and his leadership team have already begun defining what they want the next chapter of Domino’s to look like. The week before he assumed the CEO role, Jordan and his nine direct reports spent time discussing long-term direction. They asked questions like: What should the team’s legacy be five years from now? How should employees across the company describe its leadership?
Jordan told the Journal that he plans to run Domino’s with a more direct structure. Rather than appointing a successor to his former job as chief operating officer and president of Domino’s U.S., he plans to have the company’s top executives report to him directly. The setup would eliminate a layer of leadership.
He also intends to make innovation a larger priority. He pointed to the company’s new single-serving pizza, released in August, as an example of the kind of product experimentation he wants to encourage. The personal-size offering gives solo customers a pizza designed around their own topping choices, rather than a larger pie they can share.
Domino’s faces challenges but is still growing
Domino’s disclosed its succession plan in June, promoting Jordan, who was then the company’s chief operating officer and president of Domino’s U.S., to the position of its next chief executive. He succeeded Russell Weiner, who has led the company since 2022 and is set to transition to the executive chairman role.
Jordan takes charge as pizza operators contend with a more cautious customer. For example, Domino’s U.S. same-store sales increased just 0.1% in the second quarter ended June 14, its slowest domestic comparable-sales growth in five quarters and below analyst expectations.
Executives said consumers were weighed down by difficult macroeconomic conditions, which intensified competition across quick-service restaurants.
The company is still growing. Domino’s reported more than $20.6 billion in global retail sales over the four quarters ending June 14 and opened 209 net new stores in the second quarter.
The pizza chain’s total revenue in 2025 was $4.94 billion, a 5% increase from the previous year. Domino’s attributed the higher revenue to U.S. franchise advertising and franchise royalties.