New Face at Jamba
GoTo Foods, the Atlanta-based franchisor behind Auntie Anne's, Carvel, Cinnabon, Jamba, McAlister's Deli, Moe's Southwest Grill and Schlotzsky's, has named Lucy Brady as President of Jamba, effective September 8. Brady arrives from Conagra Brands, where she served as President of Grocery & Snacks and oversaw a $5.0 billion portfolio of more than 60 brands. Before Conagra, she held senior roles at McDonald's spanning strategy, innovation and digital customer experience — work that included building out MyMcDonald's Rewards, McDelivery and digital ordering infrastructure. That loyalty and digital pedigree is directly relevant to a smoothie-and-juice brand competing for morning and afternoon daypart traffic against both quick-service chains and specialty beverage concepts.
"Jamba is one of those rare brands that is instantly recognizable," Brady said. "I am excited to work alongside our brand, franchisee and restaurant teams to make Jamba even more relevant to today's guests, expand the occasions we serve and deliver an exceptional experience every time." Brady's mandate centers on strengthening core operations, deepening guest relevance and identifying new growth avenues — language that points toward menu extension and potentially broader retail or non-traditional channel plays, though no specifics were announced.
Portfolio-Wide Reshuffling
The Jamba hire is the marquee move in a broader leadership realignment that touches three other brands. Nathan Baldwin, who joined GoTo Foods in 2025 to run Auntie Anne's, steps up to President of Specialty Brands, adding Cinnabon, Carvel and the company's co-brands strategy to his responsibilities. With more than 25 years of restaurant industry experience, Baldwin is tasked with finding operational and development synergies across brands that share complementary physical footprints — a relevant mandate given how frequently Cinnabon, Auntie Anne's and Carvel appear together in non-traditional venues such as airports, travel plazas and convenience locations.
Francisco Bram, previously Chief Growth Officer, takes on an additional title as President of Moe's Southwest Grill. Bram brings more than 17 years across brand strategy, digital marketing and customer growth, with prior roles at Chewy, Albertsons Companies and Uber. His priority at Moe's is advancing a brand repositioning effort and evolving the menu and restaurant experience for franchisee profitability — a challenge that the fast-casual Mexican segment broadly has faced as Chipotle's throughput model has set a high operational bar. Finally, Biplav Misra's title expands to Chief Digital & Technology Officer, formally uniting Digital, Technology and Off-Premise functions he had been managing separately or on an interim basis. Misra previously led digital and e-commerce at Albertsons Companies and Amazon.
What It Means for Operators
For convenience and travel-plaza operators hosting GoTo Foods concepts, the realignment carries practical implications. Baldwin's consolidated Specialty Brands role — covering Cinnabon, Carvel and Auntie Anne's alongside co-brands — creates a single point of contact for multi-brand venue development, which could streamline lease negotiations and co-brand program expansion at forecourt and travel-center sites. Misra's unified digital-and-technology mandate similarly suggests faster rollout of loyalty and digital-ordering integrations across all seven brands, removing friction for the non-traditional venue partners who rely on those tools to drive incremental foodservice attachment.
GoTo Foods operates more than 7,500 restaurants, cafes, ice cream shoppes and bakeries across all 50 states and 72 countries. CEO Omer Gajial framed the moves around franchisee support and brand agility. "Strengthening our leadership structure will create greater organizational agility and allow us to remain focused on what matters most: growing category-leading brands, supporting franchisee success, and delivering experiences that keep guests coming back," he said. For the franchise foodservice channel, a platform of this scale consolidating leadership around digital, loyalty and co-brand execution is a signal worth tracking heading into 2027 planning cycles.
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.
