Since March 2018, Ms. Joey Wat has led our company as CEO and has been a member of our board of directors since July 2017. She held the post of Chief Executive Officer at KFC from October 2016 to February 2017, having previously served as our President and Chief Operating Officer from February 2017 to February 2018 and as Chief Executive Officer at Yum! Restaurants China from August 2015 to October 2016. Ms. Wat began working at Yum! Restaurants China in September 2014 as the President of KFC China. In August 2015, she was elevated to the position of Chief Executive Officer. Prior to joining YUM, Ms. Wat worked from 2004 to 2014 in management and strategy roles at the global health, beauty, and lifestyle retailer A.S. Watson Group (“Watson”) in the United Kingdom.
Her final role at Watson was managing director of Watson Health & Beauty U.K., which from 2012 to 2014 ran the retail brands Superdrug and Savers, which sold prescription drugs and other health and beauty items. In 2007, she moved from being Watson’s European head of strategy to managing director of Savers.
Ms. Wat worked in management consulting for seven years, including three years at the Hong Kong office of McKinsey & Company, prior to joining Watson. In 2000, Ms. Wat graduated from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management with a master’s degree in management.
Ms. Wat has been recognized by being listed on Forbes China’s “100 Top Businesswomen List” from 2019 to 2023 and Forbes Worldwide’s “The World’s Most Powerful Women” list from 2020 to 2023. She has also been consistently honored on Fortune China’s “50 Business Leaders” and Fortune magazine’s “Most Powerful Women in Business” lists since 2018. She was also included in the list of “100 People Transforming Business in Asia” by Business Insider in 2020. Ms. Wat joins our board with a wealth of business understanding about the company as well as industry expertise gained from her career, which included holding many executive positions in retail businesses.
About Yum China Holdings
The mission of Yum China Holdings, Inc., the largest restaurant company in China, is to make every life taste beautiful. The firm is also known as Yum China (NYSE: YUMC and HKEX: 9987). From opening its first restaurant in 1987, the company has expanded to run more than 15,000 eateries in more than 2,000 cities and towns throughout all of mainland China’s provinces and autonomous regions.
