Blaze Fast-Fire’d Pizza on Wednesday named former Bloomin’ Brands executive Mandy Shaw its new CFO as part of the addition of four executives to its leadership team.
Shaw was a former CFO with the international division of Bloomin’, the parent company of Outback Steakhouse and Carrabba’s Italian Grill, among others. She was also the chief accounting officer during Bloomin’s transition to a public company in its 2012 IPO.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles-based fast-casual pizza chain named Carolyne Canady its president of international as part of its bid to bolster the company’s growth outside of the U.S. Canady was the company’s chief development officer and helped the chain expand from two locations in 2013 to 240 now.
The company expects to finish 2018 with 325 restaurants, CEO Jim Mizes said at the ICR Conference on Wednesday, including locations in some international markets, notably the Middle East.
Mizes said that adding Shaw as CFO will help “prepare the company for the future,” and he said she has a “strong accounting, IT and international background.”
Blaze also named Julie Price its vice president of franchise sales. She had worked with Dunkin’ Brands and Pinkberry.
And Vafa Mansouri was named the company’s director of food safety and quality assurance. Mansouri had spent 20 years in food safety with Shake Shack and Yum Brands.
Blaze has also hired Garrett Snyder as director of real estate. Snyder had the same position with Nektar Juice.
“We need our franchisees to be successful from Day One,” Mizes said. He said that the company wants operators to get good sites so they’re profitable, which will give them the ability to add more locations.
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