Honest Burgers CEO Thomas Kelly steps up to chair role

Honest Burgers’ chief executive Thomas Kelly is to move into a chair role from September 2024.

The former McDonald’s and Costa Coffee executive was appointed in January 2024 with a remit to lead the burger restaurant through “its next exciting phase of growth”.

In his new role, Kelly will also be tasked with “steering the board through the next phase of the brand’s growth”.

Current chair, Spencer Skinner of Active, will remain on the board as an non-executive director.

Kelly will relinquish his executive operational leadership role to allow him to focus on other opportunities.

The burger brand told The Caterer Kelly had “created a vision and structure for the long-term growth of Honest” during his tenure as chief executive.

Earlier this year Kelly said the chain was aiming to quadruple its number of restaurants by 2030 and could adapt its format to enable further expansion outside London.

Honest Burgers said: “We believe that Thomas is best placed to lead this strategic direction as chair, committing to the long-term plan. At the same time this allows him to pursue other interesting projects.”

In the meantime, Matt Brandon, chief financial officer of Honest Burgers, will step up as interim chief executive.

The company is now actively looking for “an outstanding candidate” to take on its daily leadership.

The firm said: “Whilst this search continues we have great confidence that Matt will lead and build on our current high growth trajectory.”

Honest Burgers said it had seen 22 months of consecutive like-for-like sales growth, delivered through an uptick in covers.

In the first six months of this year sales were up 14%, delivering over 50% improvement in EBITDA performance.

Honest Burgers was co-founded by friends Tom Barton and Philip Eeles in Brighton in 2009 and now has 39 restaurants nationwide.