WILD GEESE: Jonathan Fitzpatrickexecutive vice-president, chief brand and operations officer, Burger King Corp

SOME GUYS have all the luck. Promoted to one of the top jobs at the Miami-based Burger King Corporation, Jonathan Fitzpatrick counts going incognito to try out branches of the global burger joint as an official duty.

“Every Saturday is ‘mystery shopping day’ for the family,” says the Dubliner, who was appointed executive vice-president, chief brand and operations officer at the fast food chain last month.

“My wife and kids give me their feedback and they are my harshest critics.”

With responsibility for overseeing the company’s 12,200 restaurants in 76 countries, the Clontarf man needs his beef.

A graduate in economics and sociology from UCD in the early 1990s, topped-up by a banking and finance diploma from the Smurfit Business School, Fitzpatrick’s first job was with drinks company Grand Metropolitan in Dublin’s nascent IFSC at a time when the Docklands was still being spelled with a small ‘d’.

“There was incredible excitement there – the physical development of the Docklands along with all these major financial institutions coming in. We had never seen that before.

“The optimism was great.”

With Guinness just a twinkle in Grand Met’s eye before the pair’s merger in 1997 to form Diageo, Fitzpatrick worked in Grand Met’s treasury department. Miami-based Burger King was a wholly owned subsidiary of the company and Fitzpatrick got to know Burger King’s chief financial officer. An opportunity to change from beverages to burgers came up and Fitzpatrick joined Burger King in Miami at age 25.

"My only exposure to Miami was Miami Viceon TV," recalls Fitzpatrick. "There wasn't a huge Irish population if any down here, but I made friends very quickly and never looked back."

After an initial stint in corporate finance, Fitzpatrick’s 12-year career with the company has been at the sharp end – not quite flipping burgers, but knowing exactly what it takes to make hundreds of millions in revenue from it.

Promoted to a senior development and franchising role for North America, Fitzpatrick was charged with overseeing the company’s 1,800 US properties, the building of new restaurants as well as recruiting and then managing franchisees through the life cycle of their 20-year franchise agreements with Burger King.

In 2002, control of the burger giant returned to the US, where the company had been founded in 1954, with Diageo selling Burger King to the Texas Pacific Group, Bain Capital Partners and Goldman Sachs.

Fitzpatrick decided to leave and ran a Texas-based technology company for three years. He describes the move as “a great experience”. But when Burger King executives called in 2005, he was lured back.

“I met the new team and decided it was a good time to come back,” he says. “My wife is a Miamian so it was a good personal move for us to get back to Miami too,” he says.

Coming back as vice-president of Burger King’s technology team, Fitzpatrick was responsible for implementing new systems across its stores worldwide.

“We think of each of our restaurants as a standalone business . . . we really make life simple for the restaurants. The last thing we want them focused on is IT. We want them focused on serving the guests and serving great food.

“We get very granular information on every single item we sell, what time we sell it, along with the cost side, so we look at labour and the cost of goods and all the other variables on our PL [profit and loss statement]. It’s all about getting full visibility into what’s happening at the restaurant.”

Fitzpatrick says the company’s current make-up is about 90 per cent franchise and 10 per cent company-owned restaurants, with Latin America and eastern Europe presenting some of the greatest growth opportunities.

Having spent the last 18 months based in Switzerland, overseeing operations for the company’s 3,000 European restaurants, he’s seen this growth first hand. “Russia is one of the biggest growth areas for us. We opened our first restaurant there a year ago and now we’re up to 15,” he says.

So does Burger King taste the same in Guatemala as it does on Grafton Street?

“We have a certain percentage of our menu that is the same in all 72 countries we operate in,” says Fitzpatrick. “We allow for some local customisation, so if there’s a local food item or beverage that’s a particular consumer choice in that market, we would allow our restaurants to use that – but I would say 80 per cent of our menu is consistent globally.”

When Burger King changed hands again last year, acquired for $3.3 billion by private investment firm 3G Capital, Fitzpatrick was appointed chief brand and operations officer. Based back in Miami, he reports directly to chief executive Bernardo Hees.

Of his new combined marketing and operations role, Fitzpatrick says: “We wanted to make sure that our marketing of the brand and our operations of the brand were very consistent.

“The job of marketing is to get people to know about Burger King, to think about Burger King and then go visit the restaurant. Where that marries beautifully with operations, is that once you get people to come into Burger King and try it, you want to make sure they have a terrific experience. Marketing helps bring people into the restaurant and operations makes sure they come back.”

But with golden arch rival McDonald’s deriving greater growth from its new cappuccino and salad options, does Burger King, a company traditionally reliant on young, male “super fans“ (a segment pummelled by the recession), intend to revamp its menu?

“We watch where the market is going, we watch what consumers are buying and we want to make sure we have all of those things in our restaurants . . . but we don’t want a ‘me too’ strategy.

“Over 30 per cent of our customers are now parties with kids. We have a balanced portfolio and we’re already broadening our reach.

“Burger King wants to make sure we have our own set of equities, whether that’s our Whopper, our flame-broiling, our high-quality ingredients. We want to make sure we stand alone for those things versus copying what’s happening in the market.”

Now 15 years in the US, He considers Miami his home, though he retains his Irish passport.

“Over here, your nationality is not as important as your ability and drive. But you never lose touch with your roots.”