After 15 years with McDonald’s, Alyssa Buetikofer is leaving the Chicago-based company.
The U.S. chief marketing and customer experience officer will remain through December 18 to help with the transition and support the team through the end of the year. McDonald’s said Buetikofer made the decision to step away in order to spend more time with her family.
Her departure closes a long run across McDonald’s global, U.S. and Canadian businesses.
During her tenure, Buetikofer held a series of leadership roles that included chief marketing officer of McDonald’s Canada before taking over the U.S. marketing organization.
In its announcement, McDonald’s credited her with helping shape a number of high-profile recent initiatives, including the returns of Snack Wraps and Monopoly, the launch of the chain’s expanded beverage platform and the record-breaking Grinch Meal.
The company also pointed to her role in strengthening marketing capabilities, customer strategy and relationships with Owner/Operators across the system.
Buetikofer’s exit comes less than two years after she took the top U.S. marketing role, but McDonald’s is emphasizing continuity as it begins the search for her successor.
Flatley and Newberger step into interim roles
Morgan Flatley, McDonald’s global chief marketing officer and head of new business ventures, will add the role of interim chief creative officer for the U.S. business while maintaining her global responsibilities.
Flatley is already deeply familiar with McDonald’s U.S. marketing operation.
She served as U.S. chief marketing and digital customer experience officer from 2017 through 2021 and was a driving force behind the company’s “Fan Truths” strategy and its highly successful “Famous Orders” collaborations.
McDonald’s said Flatley’s role will focus on bringing creativity to the center of the U.S. growth agenda and developing larger ideas designed to build the brand and drive traffic.
Charlie Newberger will simultaneously serve as interim senior vice president and U.S. chief marketing and commercial officer.
Newberger will oversee marketing operations and translate the company’s broader marketing strategy into commercial execution across McDonald’s U.S. system.
He has spent more than 17 years with McDonald’s, with experience spanning operations, field marketing, value, field leadership and global beverages.
Most recently, Newberger led McDonald’s global beverage strategy.
His new responsibilities will also include oversight of OPNAD and Owner/Operator engagement and alignment, giving him a central role in how national marketing priorities are activated across the franchise system.
Danica Cunningham moves up in beverages
As Newberger shifts into the interim U.S. marketing role, Danica Cunningham will become interim category leader for Global Beverages & Desserts.
Cunningham currently leads Strategy & Planning for the category and has been closely involved in development of McDonald’s expanded beverage platform.
Her background also includes more than a decade in U.S. field marketing, along with roles in New Business Ventures, menu and global category strategy.
McDonald’s said the interim structure is designed to create clearer ownership and help the company “move faster and execute with greater precision” as it sets its 2027 priorities.
That mandate arrives at an important moment for the brand.
On the company’s latest earnings call, CEO Chris Kempczinski said McDonald’s marketing had not been meeting the company’s own standard and that the brand needed to generate more “brand love.”
The comments followed a quarter in which U.S. same-store sales slipped 0.2%, with executives acknowledging weakness in value messaging and app-based offers.
McDonald’s has also said it wants fewer, bigger campaigns and more consistent execution across restaurants, rather than a crowded promotional calendar filled with overlapping partnerships, launches and value messages.
For the company, that makes the next U.S. CMO search about more than replacing one executive.
It is also about sharpening the way one of the world’s most recognizable brands shows up.
Buetikofer leaves behind a 15-year run that included work across multiple markets, major menu launches and some of McDonald’s most visible recent brand moments.
Now Flatley, Newberger and Cunningham will carry that work forward while McDonald’s searches for its next permanent U.S. marketing leader.
Sales slip while value gets complicated
According to Ad Age, the marketing transition follows a third quarter in which McDonald’s U.S. same-store sales declined 0.2%.
Executives blamed part of the weakness on cutbacks to app-based deals that regular customers had come to rely on, as well as a lack of sufficiently compelling value offers for lower-income diners.
Sales improved after McDonald’s restored some of those offers in September.
McDonald’s has cycled rapidly between cultural partnerships, value messages and product introductions, a pace the CEO has said can overwhelm restaurant crews while preventing individual campaigns from breaking through with consumers.
The company is now moving toward fewer, larger marketing platforms.
That philosophy is part of “McDonald’s > Next,” the chain’s broader strategy to improve food, restaurant experience and customer engagement while using loyalty data to deliver more personalized offers.
The World Cup relationship ends
The leadership change also comes shortly after McDonald’s confirmed it would end its 32-year FIFA World Cup sponsorship.
The company mounted its largest-ever global marketing effort around this summer’s tournament, but the campaign reportedly failed to meet expectations.
Flatley has said McDonald’s intends to continue investing in sports and culture, but with greater emphasis on creating distinctive experiences that belong specifically to the McDonald’s brand.
That distinction matters as McDonald’s attempts to balance short-term traffic-driving promotions with the longer-term emotional connection Kempczinski says has been lacking.
Buetikofer’s 15 years under the Arches
Buetikofer began her career at media agency OMD before joining McDonald’s in 2011.
She moved through a series of U.S. and global assignments and later became chief marketing officer of McDonald’s Canada before succeeding Tariq Hassan as U.S. CMO in February 2025.
Hassan left McDonald’s and joined Wendy’s this August as chief marketing and customer growth officer.
Earlier this year, Buetikofer spoke about the increasingly complicated job facing modern marketing leaders, emphasizing data, media strategy and personalization alongside creative work and cultural relevance.
“We have to make sure that we’re motivating them based on what actually motivates them, not what we want to market or tell them,” she said.
She also acknowledged the pressure that comes with the chair.
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“There is a lot of pressure on the CMO and on marketing teams,” Buetikofer said. “It’s our jobs to drive demand. It’s our jobs to drive growth.”
Her departure comes amid considerable turnover in restaurant marketing leadership, including the recent exit of Popeyes CMO Matt Rubin.
For McDonald’s, though, the next hire carries particular weight.
The company doesn’t lack awareness.
It doesn’t lack scale. And it certainly doesn’t lack advertising. It needs is something considerably harder to manufacture.
Love.
