McDonald's U.S. Marketing Chief Buetikofer Exits Amid Value Push Reset

McDonald's U.S. chief marketing and customer experience officer, Alyssa Buetikofer, is stepping down, and the burger giant has split her duties between two executives while it searches for a replacement. Buetikofer stays through Dec. 18 to, in the company's words, "ensure a smooth transition," according to a system message seen by Nation's Restaurant News.

She's leaving to spend more time with family, the company told its system on Thursday. McDonald's framed the leadership reshuffle as the natural result of her decision, not a reaction to performance.

Who takes over what?

Morgan Flatley, McDonald's global chief marketing officer and herself a former U.S. marketing chief, becomes interim chief creative officer. Flatley ran U.S. marketing and digital customer experience from 2017 through 2021, where she built the "Fan Truths" strategy and the "Famous Orders" campaign that produced the Travis Scott Meal.

Charlie Newberger, a 17-year company veteran who most recently led global beverage strategy, becomes interim U.S. chief marketing and commercial officer. He previously headed the CosMc's test before moving to beverages. Danica Cunningham steps in as interim category leader for global beverages and desserts as Newberger shifts focus. There's no timeline for how long this interim structure lasts.

"These shifts help enable us to establish clear ownership and dedicated focus, which will enable us to move faster and execute with greater precision while setting up our 2027 priorities," said Skye Anderson, president of McDonald's USA, global chief restaurant experience officer Jill McDonald, and Flatley in the message.

Why the timing matters

The changes land as McDonald's overhauls its domestic marketing after a rough spring and summer in which several campaigns underperformed. The list includes the company's value messaging — notably a $3 and Under value menu — plus a KPop Demon Hunters promotion and the FIFA World Cup tie-in.

The problem, per CEO Chris Kempczinski, wasn't the individual ideas but the stacking of them. "You've got a K-Pop Demon Hunters message, then you have a value message, then you have a beverage message, then you have a FIFA message," he said in August. "It's tough to drive awareness when you're sort of jumping around and giving those two, three, at most four-week windows."

That diagnosis points to menu engineering and pricing discipline, not just creative taste. Four-plus simultaneous messages mean each platform — value, beverages, entertainment tie-ins — gets roughly a month of consumer attention before the next one replaces it. Clearer category ownership under Flatley and Newberger is designed to fix exactly that fragmentation.

Flatley has also said the company needs to move away from "borrowed IP," despite hits like the Grinch Meal and a previous Minecraft promotion. That's a meaningful signal for licensing-dependent chains watching whether McDonald's rebuilds its calendar around owned platforms, starting with its new beverage line.

What does this change for operators?

In the short term, not much visibly — interim leadership keeps current campaigns running. The real test comes with the 2027 priorities the executives cited, and whether the successor installs a narrower, better-sequenced message calendar that gives value and beverages longer windows to build awareness.