• The parent company of fast-casual chain Panera Bread has a new CEO.
• The restaurant has undergone a menu overhaul and seen lawsuits over highly caffeinated beverages.
• It's the latest in a series of leadership switches at restaurant chains over the past 12 months.

The parent company of fast-casual chain Panera Bread is getting a new chief executive, the latest in a series of CEO transitions at major restaurant chains.

Panera Brands said Tuesday that current CEO José Alberto Dueñas, who has held the job for the last 1 ½ years, would step down immediately but remain as a "special advisor" to the new CEO until the end of March. Paul Carbone, Panera's CFO, will serve as interim CEO as the company looks for a permanent leader.

"I am immensely proud of leading Panera during this transformative period for the Company," Dueñas said. Panera Brands includes the eponymous chain as well as Caribou Coffee and bagel chain Einstein Bros.

Dueñas joined Panera in mid-2023, with the chain describing his appointment as its "next generation of CEO leadership and Board governance in preparation for its eventual IPO." While the company reportedly filed confidentially to go public in late 2023, it has yet to list.

Dueñas also oversaw the Panera chain's "largest menu transformation ever" in 2024, which included more focus on items like mac and cheese and sandwiches and bigger portion sizes.

The menu changes also eliminated Panera's Charged Sips range of beverages, which contained high levels of caffeine. The drinks were the subject of multiple lawsuits, which alleged that they left some customers with permanent injuries and problems such as body shakes.

The executive change at Panera is the latest of several CEO switches at major restaurant chains over the past year amid a tough consumer spending environment for brands from McDonald's to Nike.

Brian Niccol, formerly the CEO of Mexican grill chain Chipotle, took over the top job at Starbucks in September in an abrupt end to former CEO Laxman Narasimhan's time in the role. Starbucks has reported falling sales in key markets, including the US and China, for much of the past year.

Scott Boatwright, previously Chipotle's COO, took over as interim CEO in August.

Meanwhile, former P.F. Chang's CEO Damola Adamolekun has helmed Red Lobster since September, the same month that the seafood-focused chain emerged from bankruptcy.

Subway CEO John Chidsey retired at the end of 2024, the year after he oversaw the sandwich chain's sale to private equity firm Roark Capital in a deal worth about $9 billion.

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• Ron Shaich uses 'premortems' to motivate a meaningful life and guide his work.
• Shaich, Panera's founder, sold the chain for $7.5 billion in 2017.
• His investment fund, Act III, backs brands like Cava and Tatte Bakery.

Panera's former CEO, Ron Shaich, isn't afraid of death — he's inspired by it.

Over the years he's realized that the time to review whether or not your life was meaningful was "not in the ninth inning with two outs," he told the Wall Street Journal, referring to the final phase of a baseball game. "It was in the seventh inning, the fifth inning, and third inning."

During the final week of every year, he conducts what he calls a "premortem:" a ritual that helps him reframe death as motivation to live a more meaningful life. "I ask myself: What am I going to do now to ensure that when I reach that ultimate destination, I've done what I need to do?" he wrote in his 2023 book, "Know What Matters."

He starts by envisioning all the key areas in his life.

"I'd pull out a yellow legal pad and I'd start to divide that yellow legal pad into the areas of my life that I cared about," Shaich once told Business Insider. "And to me, that's my relationship with my body and my health, my core relationships — my wife, my family, my kids — my relationship with my work, what I wanted out of my work, and what gave me joy, and then my relationship with my own spirituality. And then based on that, I literally would say, 'What is it I want to have accomplished in each of these spheres of my life?'"

Shaich, who reached billionaire status this past July, has built a career off some of the most successful food chains in the country. He launched Panera in 1999 and sold it in 2017 to the European investment fund, JAB, for $7.5 billion.

Through his over billion-dollar fund, Act III, he's invested in chains like Mediterranean fast-casual brand Cava, Tatte bakery, and organic cafe Life Alive.

He told the Journal that his philosophy of life and death also guides his work. He asks his companies to conduct premortems, envisioning goals for the coming three to five years and planning the path to achieve them.

"It's been the key to all of our successes," he said.