There is an anamorphism that McDonald’s created more millionaires than any other company in the U.S. 

Sol Trujillo explained the phenomenon when he hosted the panel, New Mainstream Economy CEO Townhall, at L’Attitude 2020, a business based national initiative focused on helping enlightened executives understand The New Mainstream Economy and the U.S. Latino cohort that is driving it.

He described a conversation he had with an executive at McDonald’s.

“McDonald’s has created more Latino millionaires than anybody else,” the executive told Trujillo. “Sol, you don’t know how many franchise owners we have.”

Trujillo directed this anecdote to Jose Cil, the Chief Executive Officer at Restaurant Brands Incorporated (RBI), and a panelist.

RBI owns fast-food brands like Burger King, Popeye’s, Taco Bell.

Like McDonald’s, RBI brands are franchised, meaning the menu is the same at all Burger King franchises, but a different individual owns each restaurant; each franchise owner goes through an approval process with the corporate office.

That amorphism is no longer valid.

The terms for franchise ownership for McDonald’s and Burger King now require a net worth of at least $1 million, meaning one is already a millionaire before they are approved.

Cil said RBI has 1,500 franchise owners.

“The power of our brands-whether its Burger King, Popeye’s or Tim Horton’s-really is a function of the power and the strength and the commitment of the very dedicated franchise owners that we have around the country. We have nearly 1,500 independent entrepreneurs that represent our three great brands here in the U.S.”

“In the U.S., we have more than 10,000 restaurants, and these are, in many cases, small businesses, family-owned businesses. In some cases, they are generational, so they’ll pass from the grandfather to the father, or the daughter, and ultimately to the grandkids.”

Cil said some owners had owned that franchise for more than fifty years.

“That’s the heart of our business. They do an incredible job; they connect well with our communities. They do an incredible job of building teams and having diversity and a different perspective in those cohorts of franchise owners is really critical for us, representing the communities in which they live and operate.

“We’ve historically had very strong Hispanic participation in our brands and Burger King in particular, both at the franchise level and at the leadership level, and it represents an important part of what we’re going to be doing going forward to continue to evolve our brands,” Cil said, “take it to the next level in this country, and really understanding and developing our capabilities locally to address all the growing needs of the Hispanic cohort and others that are such an important part of our consumer base.”

Cil said his restaurants served more than one million Hispanics daily in the U.S. in 2020.

Thirty percent of corporate staff at RBI are Hispanic, he said.