The Journey to the Culinary C-Suite

flight from Brunswick, Ga., to Newport Beach, Calif., takes four hours and 15 minutes. Scott Boatwright made the trip in 52 years.

Boatwright has journeyed from modest beginnings in Brunswick to the corporate headquarters of Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. in Newport Beach. In November 2024, he was named chief executive officer of the fast-casual chain that dishes up made-to-order burritos, tacos and bowls, and has revenue of more than $11 billion. Chipotle serves more than 2 million customers a day in 3,700-plus stores, all company-owned except in the Middle East, and Boatwright guides ambitious plans to open up to 345 more — almost one per day — in 2025.

On his way to Chipotle’s top job, Boatwright washed dishes, carried drink trays, wiped counters and ran food orders. He held jobs at fast-food franchises, steakhouses and resort banquet operations. At every stop, he set himself apart with his dedication, people skills and good judgment.

“In my early jobs, I learned a lot about how to be a team player,” Boatwright says.

He went straight out of high school to real work in the real world. He supplemented lessons learned in life’s School of Experience, though, with one special career ingredient that has proven invaluable — an Executive Master of Business Administration from GSU’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business.

“When I got the chance, I went for my Executive MBA at Georgia State and jumped into the opportunity with both feet,” Boatwright says. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.”

Early on, Boatwright had to work to help support his family. The golden arches were a golden opportunity.

“On the day I turned 15,” he recalls, “I stood in my local McDonald’s applying for a job, and I got hired on the spot.”

His sophomore year of high school, Boatwright took a new job at Quincy’s Family Steakhouse.

“I spent a lot of time in the kitchen,” he says, “closing it down after hours and cleaning all the pots, pans and dishes.”

After high school graduation, Boatwright caught on at the Jekyll Island Club Resort, on one of the Golden Isles along Georgia’s coast, as a set-up person for club banquets.

Arranging tables and chairs for big events didn’t suit everyone, but it suited Boatwright.

“I kept getting more and more responsibility,” he says. “It was a next-man-up situation.”

One night, the hotel didn’t have enough runners to carry food to guests. A supervisor tapped Boatwright on the shoulder. “Do you think you can carry a tray and serve?”

He could.

A few nights later, the supervisor found Boatwright again. “Scott, we need a runner for the bar tonight. Think you can learn the nuances of serving drinks?”

He could.

“I’ve always been the guy to raise my hand for an opportunity to learn something new, do something different and expand my capabilities,” Boatwright explains. “More importantly, I always took the opportunity to expand my value.”

Soon he was banquet captain at the resort hotel, responsible for supervising staff and operations. Then, in no time after that, he woke up to find himself as assistant banquet manager.

Talent gets attention.

After a year or two, nearby Sea Palms Resort cherrypicked the young go-getter to become its assistant food and beverage director. But since the resort had no actual food and beverage director, Boatwright stepped up and ran the whole show.

“I was a young guy at that time, 24 or 25 years old,” Boatwright remembers. “But I was willing to put in the hours and stay longer than most. And I had an intellectual curiosity that kept me eager to learn everything, from everyone around me.”

Those qualities would one day lead to the C-Suite in Newport Beach.

It’s hard to believe today, but not so long ago most Americans had never heard of a burrito.

It’s a Spanish word. It means “little burro.” You can pack most anything onto a burro, and if you pack rice and beans and a meat and other stuff you like onto a tortilla, then roll it up, you have, well, a little burro. A burrito.

In the 1970s, the tasty handheld snacks were familiar on the West Coast, but if Americans elsewhere knew about burritos, it was probably from the name of a country rock band, The Flying Burrito Brothers. (That group featured Gram Parsons, a singer/songwriter who grew up in Waycross, Ga., about an hour east of Brunswick.)

Steve Ells, an ambitious line cook working at a fine-dining restaurant in San Francisco, noticed lots of locals buying lots of burritos. So, in 1993, the 28-year-old Ells left chef work and returned home to Denver to open the first Chipotle Mexican Grill with $85,000 borrowed from his dad. (A chipotle is a smoked jalapeno pepper, a common ingredient in traditional Mexican cooking.)

Ells needed to sell 100 or so burritos a day to break even. Within weeks, he was selling 1,000. He quickly plowed profits into a second store, then a third. Soon, he ran 16 Chipotles in Colorado. Customers swarmed to buy tasty, hand-prepared, custom-ordered burritos that Chipotle pledged to be wholesome and healthy, sourced from vendors with sustainable practices.

McDonald’s — yes, that McDonald’s, the one that first hired 15-year-old Scott Boatwright — invested in Chipotle in 1998 to help the company grow. Eight years later, McDonald’s divested its ownership share, but by that time Ells ran more than 500 restaurants. In 2008, he took the company international with a restaurant in Toronto. He soon expanded into Europe, too.

As Chipotle grew and matured, meanwhile, so did Boatwright.

Alert for opportunity, the young banquet captain reached out to a recruiter who’d pestered a disinterested friend working at Waffle House. Six months later, Boatwright entered management training at Arby’s, owned then by RTM Restaurant Group in Atlanta, where Boatwright soon moved.

Boatwright ran a lone Arby’s restaurant for six months. Then he ran eight of them. Two years later, he ran 70 Arby’s stores. Two years after that, 400.

“I was learning all about the fast-food industry and franchising,” Boatwright says. “Also, company operations, how to navigate a corporate system, corporate structures — so much.”

Arby’s went through ownership changes, but Boatwright stayed put. The company went public, then merged with Wendy’s in 2008. In 2011, the Wendy’s/Arby’s Group Inc. sold most of Arby’s to Roark Capital, today the owner of Inspire Brands, headquartered in Atlanta.

Through all this transformation, Boatwright quietly met challenge after challenge, rising to senior vice president of operations services at Arby’s Restaurant Group.

He earned respect from colleagues. One, John Kelly, has worked as Arby’s chief operating officer.

“Scott has the ability to quickly see opportunities in his business and create transformational strategies and initiatives to solve for them,” Kelly says. “This has been on display throughout his successful career.”

While Boatwright made his mark at Arby’s, his wife at that time was earning a master’s degree in health sciences at GSU. At night when Boatwright got home, she’d be busy studying.

It dawned on Boatwright that a college degree might help his career, too.

“I was sitting around watching ‘Seinfeld’ reruns,” Boatwright says. “I thought to myself, ‘This is stupid. I’m gonna go get my MBA.’”

He studied hard for the GMAT. “I scored high enough — barely — to apply to business schools,” he says.

He discussed pursuit of an MBA with his boss Paul Brown, CEO at Arby’s then and today the CEO of Inspire Brands.

“Paul was fully supportive,” Boatwright says. “Then, he actually agreed to pay for it, and that made it a no-brainer.”

Boatwright admits he entered the Robinson College with a little bit of attitude.

“When I went to Georgia State, part of me felt like I’d been in the business world long enough that I didn’t really need it,” he says.

But?

“I quickly found out I only knew enough about business to be dangerous,” he says. “I really didn’t know how to set strategy or articulate a vision. I didn’t know how to fully assess an organization based on its financial performance today relative to past performance or how that would dictate future performance. At Robinson, I learned all those things, and much more.”

Boatwright graduated with a 3.96 grade point average. At the same time, he was leading national operations at a household-name fast-food giant.

“That’s something I’m super proud of,” he says. “But I think I’m most proud of really leaning into it, really being all-in, committed.”

Melody Paris, former associate director of the Executive MBA program, saw Boatwright’s work firsthand.

“From the moment I met Scott, I was struck by how genuine he was. He had this rare combination of confidence and humility, a quiet strength that made people want to listen,” she says.

“What stood out even more was his deep curiosity. He had a real thirst for knowledge. It was obvious that he was a leader, not just because of his talent, but because of the way he lifted up those around him. He made a lasting impact, challenging himself, supporting his classmates when they needed help and embracing every opportunity to grow.”

Yes, talent gets attention.

It’s why Steve Ells at Chipotle contacted Boatwright in early 2017, a year after Scott framed and mounted his newly minted degree.

Performance gets attention too, of course. When Ells called, Boatwright led operations at more than 1,000 Arby’s franchises, plus another 600-plus company-owned restaurants in 22 states. In Boatwright’s first year as senior vice president, Arby’s grew sales 9.2 percent and sales on his watch grew for the next 26 consecutive quarters.

Numbers like those stand out in a ferociously competitive fast-food world.

Ells hired Boatwright into Chipotle in May 2017 as chief operating officer and shortly after, in February 2018, the organization announced Brian Niccol as CEO, who remained at the helm until August 2024 when he left the burrito business to take the top spot at Starbucks.

Chipotle’s board of directors quickly installed Boatwright as interim CEO. Scott Maw, Chipotle’s chairman of the board, made the position permanent in November 2024.

“Scott is absolutely the best person to lead the next stage of growth at Chipotle,” Maw says in a press release. “This announcement is an affirmation of Scott’s leadership capability.”

The Chipotle board had good reason to believe. In his seven years as Chipotle COO, Boatwright had been part of a leadership team that increased revenue by more than 150 percent, and the stock price by more than 800 percent. Morale soared with a renewed focus on training and store quality. New technology improved customer service.

Boatwright also championed Chipotle’s “secret sauce” — not a salsa, but a commitment.

“Chipotle was born of the radical belief that there is a connection between how food is raised and prepared, and how it tastes,” Boatwright says. “We absolutely believe our motto: ‘Real is better. Better for You, Better for People, Better for Our Planet.’ It may be the hard way to do things, but it’s the right way.”

Chipotle customers crowd counters to buy burritos and bowls with no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives. Chipotle was one of the first national restaurant brands to commit to goals on local and organic produce, and the first to commit to using responsibly raised meat with some of the highest animal welfare standards.

“We take a lot of pride in all that, and we spend a lot of time talking about our point of differentiation,” Boatwright says.

Boatwright and Chipotle’s executive leadership team at the company's early March Field Leadership Conference in Austin, Texas.

The work ethic Boatwright developed in Brunswick is still with him.

He rises at 5 a.m. He dashes to the gym for a workout, hurries home and grabs breakfast.

“If I’m lucky, I spend the first hour of my son’s morning with him, from 7 to 8 a.m.,” Boatwright says. “Then I’m either on a plane somewhere or buckled down in the office.”

As a CEO, Boatwright says he still keeps an eye toward running a great business — the operations — but his responsibility has shifted to “managing a great stock and thinking about our organizational legacy.

“A lot of my job now is preparedness — media engagements, investor relations, preparing for earnings calls and board meetings, for investor conversations and meeting with our large institutional investors,” he says. “I also spend a lot of time talking about strategy, plans, leadership philosophy and risk mitigation. Everything I do is geared toward garnering shareholder confidence and improving shareholder value.”

Now and again, Boatwright has time for lunch at his desk. That’s a treat. At Arby’s, he used to sneak out “two or three times a week,” he confesses, to a nearby Chipotle, first loving the food, then the brand. In rare moments of down time, he’ll get in a round of golf, a sport he loves.

So, how to wrap up a burrito success story?

Scott Boatwright has come a long way from being up to his elbows in suds in a Brunswick steakhouse to being up to his elbows in paperwork and plans as CEO of Chipotle in Newport Beach.

He loves to give full credit for what he gained at one of the milestones along that journey.

“I learned a ton through my GSU experience,” Boatwright says. “It has served me well since that day, and I truly believe I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in today without it.”