Three Hires, One Target
Einstein Bros. Bagels, America's largest retail bagel chain with more than 700 locations, has appointed three C-suite executives — Chief Development Officer Patrick Waldron, Chief People Officer Shawna Fehrman-Lee, and Chief Financial Officer Will Evans — as the brand accelerates a push toward 1,000 bakeries by 2030. The hires signal a deliberate infrastructure build-out ahead of what amounts to roughly 300 net-new openings over the next three years, a pace that will demand tighter real estate discipline, deeper talent pipelines, and more sophisticated financial oversight than the company's existing bench could carry alone.
The fast-casual breakfast-and-lunch segment, where Einstein Bros. competes on fresh-baked bagels, double-whipped cream cheese shmear, handcrafted coffee, and catering, sits inside a U.S. bagel market valued at approximately $5.8 billion. As convenience-channel operators expand their own grab-and-go morning daypart — investing in foodservice programs anchored by bagel sandwiches and dispensed beverage stations — a well-capitalized Einstein Bros. growing at this clip represents both a competitive pressure point and a potential wholesale or catering supply partner for c-store buyers.
The Executives
Waldron brings more than 15 years of development experience, most recently as director of business operations for Amazon's Worldwide Grocery unit, where he helped build the Amazon Fresh real estate organization from inception, supported the opening of more than 60 Amazon Fresh stores, and led rollout of new Whole Foods Market formats. At Einstein Bros., he will lead real estate strategy and modernize the development pipeline as the brand pushes toward that 1,000-unit mark. His appointment carries weight for an industry watching grocery-adjacent chains sharpen their site-selection tools — the same analytical rigor Amazon applied to Fresh locations could meaningfully compress Einstein Bros.' time-to-open cycle.
Fehrman-Lee joins from HelloFresh, where she spent nearly a decade as global vice president of people, overseeing talent and transformation across 16 international markets and a workforce exceeding 20,000 employees. Scaling a foodservice labor model across hundreds of new units is one of the industry's most persistent operational challenges; her hire directly addresses the culture and retention infrastructure a 300-location expansion demands.
Evans rounds out the trio with a resume that spans public accounting at EY, a CFO role at La Colombe Coffee, a stint in private equity backing restaurant concepts, and most recently CFO of Alvarado Restaurant Nation. He also supported Zoës Kitchen through its initial public offering — experience that could prove relevant if Einstein Bros., as part of Panera Brands, eyes any capital markets activity to fund its growth runway.
What It Means for the Channel
"Their complementary expertise strengthens an already exceptional leadership team and gives us the depth to grow thoughtfully, invest in our teams and bring Einstein Bros. to more communities nationwide," said Jessica DePetro, CEO of Einstein Bros. Bagels.
For convenience and fuel operators tracking morning daypart competition, the Einstein Bros. expansion plan is worth monitoring. A chain scaling from 700 to 1,000-plus locations specifically targets high-traffic suburban and urban trade areas — the same corridors where larger c-store banners are investing in made-to-order breakfast and barista-style coffee programs. The bagel category's staying power at foodservice — portable, customizable, relatively high ticket — has made it a reliable draw for commuter traffic that c-stores also court. Einstein Bros. is part of Panera Brands, which also operates Panera Bread and Caribou Coffee, giving the parent company broad morning-daypart coverage and cross-brand catering scale.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
