From pizza to professor: Former Giordano’s CFO brings lessons from corporate world to the classroom

Marquette Business

From pizza to professor: Former Giordano's CFO brings lessons from corporate world to the classroom

Much like most people in Chicagoland, Brent Johnson has a definitive take on which restaurant serves the best deep-dish pizza.

"Giordano's is my favorite pizza, and that was true long before I was ever hired on with them," Johnson says.

Johnson, though, is a little more biased than most, having been the president and chief financial officer of Giordano's. His multi-decade career, which started with a Marquette degree in finance and marketing, has taken him through positions in the automotive, technology and restaurant industries, to name just a few. He's handled investor relations for Fortune 500 companies and managed bankruptcy proceedings, accumulating deep financial experience that he now shares with Marquette students as an instructor of practice.

What was it like to oversee a business that customers feel emotionally attached to, like a beloved chain restaurant?

To be an employee of a particular business, I have to have a passion for it and be an evangelist for the product. Having that affinity for Giordano's pizza allowed me to connect with the product and the customers because I was coming from the same place that they were.

Restaurants have a high rate of failure; what separates a place like Giordano's from a restaurant that might make an equally good product, but not survive financially?

You have to have a competitive advantage. There has to be something about you that makes you unique and better than your competition that draws consumers in and satisfies them. For us, it's fresh ingredients and preparation of a pizza with unique characteristics.

If your product is not unique, then you have to win on price or dependability or service or something else. Restaurants that don't understand that, places that aren't delivering something unique that consumers value enough to go back and visit, end up failing.

There's a constant struggle between expansion and maintaining product quality in chain businesses. How did that play out at Giordano's?

We have a 27,000-square foot commissary in Mount Prospect, Illinois, out by the airport. In that facility, we make all the dough and deliver it fresh to our restaurants. We get cheese in 50-lb. bulk cubes and we age it there for 15 to 20 days before the optimal time comes to serve it. We have this fresh ingredient approach where we don't make it in the restaurant.

When we went to our expansion phase, and we grew to 70 restaurants over 10 states, we developed a way to create mini-commissaries to ensure we were still getting that freshness. Maintaining product quality is hard for a place like Giordano's that values fresh ingredients.

Some students are anxious about feeling like they have to decide their careers immediately. As someone who has changed industries and roles frequently, what insights can you share about adaptability?

First of all, switching careers is more common now than ever. I think people value having broad experiences over a narrow focus. There are exceptions, of course; if you're in a specialty field, there can be some technical aspects that you really need to know. But for most careers, particularly if you aspire to the leadership level of the company, the broader your skillset, the more effective you're going to be.

What made you want to teach?

I don't know that I've ever stopped teaching! I've always been a hands-on leader and really liked doing things myself. We've always hired young people - MBAs and undergrads - and training and developing them is something I've enjoyed. This isn't that different. Developing people in the professional setting and getting them to where they need to be career-wise has a lot of similarities to what I'm doing right now.

Teaching at Marquette is a great opportunity for me firstly because it was my alma mater. I think we all feel a special connection and bond to the college where we complete our undergrad; it's no different for me. But for me, Marquette was a special place because of its Jesuit values and approach to teaching. I've always appreciated this and valued the fullness of perspective a Jesuit education brings. Deciding to teach at Marquette was a natural fit for how I view business and life in general.

Do you have a favorite Giordano's order?

We have several favorites. It used to be the spinach-stuffed pizza; you'd get this spinach mixed with cheese that was stuffed into the layers of the pizza. That was always my favorite. However, throughout the process of growing Giordano's, we brought an executive chef in to create new products. There's an artichoke feta cheese one that's served on a thin crust; it's fantastic. And then there are a few inspired by California Pizza Kitchen that are good too, specifically one with barbecue chicken on it.

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