Julia Stewart

Nation's Restaurant News, Jan, 2000 by Bill Carlino

Applebee's prexy shatters the glass ceiling, breaks down barriers for women

Julia Stewart didn't just tap against the glass ceiling; she shattered it with a frying pan.

In an industry where top-level female executives are about as common as an IRS agent with a sense of humor, she has the distinction of heading Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar, the largest casual-dining brand in the world. Stewart's charge is a chain that encompasses nearly 1,200 restaurants and generates annual sales in excess of $2 billion.

In her post at Applebee's, she also claims membership to a small roster of women in upper management who oversee large restaurant brands -- a conspicuously short list that includes Jackie Trujillo of Harman Management, Leslie Christon of On The Border, Hala Moddelimog of Churchs and Nancy Parker of Sportservice.

"There aren't many of us," she admits. "But [the status of women executives] has come a long way since I first began in this business. Fortunately, for most of my career, there weren't what I would call intolerable situations when men reported to me, but believe me, I have had my moments."

Throughout her 20-year career she has tried to ease future barriers of entry for female executives in the industry as a founding member and past president of the Women's Foodservice Forum.

And last year she received the prestigious Pacesetter Award from the Roundtable for Women in Foodservice. In an ironic twist, it was an award that Stewart had Applebee's chief executive Lloyd Hill accept for her in abstentia as she had just given birth to her second child -- an unimaginable scenario for Stewart when she began her career in foodservice in 1978.

"When I began, there just weren't any female role models to pattern myself after," Stewart says. "What I've always tried to do was to blaze a path straighter and brighter for others to follow. But I would not hesitate for one second to encourage both my children to go into foodservice. It's a terrific business."

For the affable and infectiously energetic Stewart, her post at Applebee's caps a 20-year career in the restaurant industry, and a resume highlighted with career-building positions at such national brands as Carl's Jr., Burger King, Black Angus and Taco Bell.

But even as a 16-year-old busperson at a local restaurant in San Diego, Stewart knew that she ultimately wanted to run a company.

"My parents were both teachers and coming from an environment of academia, they were both very supportive of whatever I wanted to pursue. They always told me, 'you can do whatever you want to.' So support from my family was never a problem."

She brazenly shared those executive ambitions with Taco Bell's upper management when they hired her as a regional vice president in 1991.

"I told them I fully intend to run something someday," says Stewart. "And they were like, 'OK fine.'"

Stewart's enthusiasm and accomplishments have also left an indelible impression on various association colleagues.

Carla Cooper, vice president for customer marketing at Atlanta-based Coca-Cola USA, met Stewart at one of the WFF's earliest meetings and eventually succeeded her as president of the group.

"I was immediately impressed with Julia's dynamic and decisive management style and her unrelenting energy. Her passion, intensity and drive are infectious and never fail to inspire others," Cooper says.

A double major in marketing and communications from San Diego State University, Stewart's first job came about as a result of a marketing project for a class at SDSU.

Her innovation, called the "McDonald's Masher," consisted of mashing a hamburger into the shape of the trademark McDonald's arches. Her project somehow wound up being featured on a segment of the local TV news and the recognition resulted in a job offer from a local advertising agency.

One year later, she accepted a regional marketing post at Carl's Jr. When she told founder Carl Karcher two years later she was exiting to take a higher marketing post at rival Burger King, he gave her an impassioned plea to stay and remain "part of the family."

Despite the avuncular Karcher's pleading, Stewart left.

She spent five years at Burger King in various regional marketing capacities including a stint under Herman Cain, who at the time was running the Philadelphia market for the burger chain. In all, she relocated five times within a five-year span.

The next stop was back in her native California where she became vice president of marketing research and development for the Stuart Anderson's Black Angus chain.

"At Black Angus, everything we read told us we should get out of the steak business, healthy eating was in and red meat was out. But fortunately we didn't listen."

When her six-year stint at Stuart Anderson's ended in 1991, she had overseen every department in the company with the exception of operations and finance.

When Taco Bell's then-parent PepsiCo came calling she made the career decision to backfill her inexperience in operations. After 15 years in the marketing side of the business, she made the radical decision to switch to operations.