Earlier this month, Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) CFO Jack Hartung announced his plans to retire from his long-standing executive role on March 31, 2025, staying on in the new year to help the company and his successor, Chipotle Vice President of Finance Adam Rymer, ease in the transition.
Hartung joins Catalysts alongside Yahoo Finance executive editor Brian Sozzi to discuss his plans for retirement and the lessons he learned from his 22-year tenure as Chipotle’s chief financial officer:
“I would say the most important thing is to build a culture and build teams that match the culture. And what that means to me,is hire people that are humble, but they’re really confident at the same time. And now I know that sounds like those are two contradictory, but if you hire people that are very skilled, and they’re confident and they’re skilled, but they’re also humble, you could build a team around folks like that. And when a team like that buys into a purpose, like Chipotle is a purpose-driven company, you can accomplish great things.”
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Morning Brief.
This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino
Video Transcript
Jack, you’re about to uh wind down a decorated career uh at Chipotle, what’s the, what’s the biggest leadership lesson that you learned over your long time at Chipotle?
So that’s first and secondarily, are you done in public company life?
I, is this it for you?
Well, OK, so the first one, boy, there’s a lot of advice.
Um I would say the most important thing is to um you know, build a culture and build teams that match the culture and what that means for, you know, to me is hire people that are humble, but they’re really confident at the same time.
And now I know that sounds like those are too contradictory.
But if you hire people that are very skilled, they’re confident, they’re skilled, but they’re also humble.
You could build a team around folks like that.
And when a team like that buys into a purpose, you know, like Chipotle is a purpose driven company, you can accomplish great things.
People would put the purpose, you know, out of their, you know, their own ambitions, which by the way, when people come in and they’re talented and they work hard and they work as a good teammate, their career will flourish as well.
So to me that’s a, you know, to me that’s, that’s a way to build a great culture and build great teams for me.
I, you know, Brian, I’m, I’m gonna, you know, think about what I, I do next.
I do wanna help other companies.
I don’t know if that will be through advisory.
I don’t know if that will be through board activity.
Uh I’m not sure if I want to take on another uh you know, public company CFO role.
I mean, I love this role.
I can’t imagine there’s a better role in the country.
Uh But listen, IIII, I hope there’s gonna be a lot of uh you know, demand for uh to hear from some of my experiences.
And I just, I love helping people that are trying to run a business, especially small businesses that have big ambitions.
