KFC Hires Taco Bell’s Marketing Exec to Be Its New CMO in UK

KFC's United Kingdom and Ireland unit appointed former Taco Bell marketing director Monica Pool as its new chief marketing officer. She will officially join the company in the autumn of this year.

KFC re-hired Pool since she originally joined the company in 2009. However, after more than 10 years, she left to join Taco Bell, where she served as marketing director. Now she is returning for a new executive post.

As mentioned by Marketing Week, this will be her second stint at KFC, and she has been assigned to various regions while working for over a decade in the fried chicken fast-food brand. When she first joined in 2009, she was appointed marketing manager in South Africa, and later, she was also tasked to manage the KFC units in central and eastern European regions.

At KFC UK and Ireland, Pool became the marketing director in 2015 and was promoted to director of people transformation in 2019. In December 2020, she became the CMO at Taco Bell, and now she is rejoining the KFC group.

The company said that Monica Pool is replacing Jack Hinchliffe, who stepped down six months earlier. He is now the CMO of Habit Burger Grill, another fast-food brand owned by Yum! Brands. Jenny Packwood was interim CMO when KFC UK & Ireland was still looking for a permanent replacement.

Commenting on the appointment of Monica Pool as the new CMO, KFC UK's general manager, Meghan Farren, stated, "The entire KFC team in the UK & Ireland are thrilled to announce Monica's appointment as our new CMO. A hugely talented marketer with a wealth of experience in our business, she's the perfect person to lead our brand and marketing function."

She added, "Monica is an inspiring leader and a passionate and purposeful developer of people and teams. Monica's energy, positivity and creativity will be hugely valuable in today's challenging operating environment. I am excited to partner with her as we lead KFC through its next chapter, and I have no doubt that she will drive positive change across the business on her return."

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