
Panera Bread hires former Burger King executive to lead growth
The brand created a new role for their three-year growth plans.
Panera Bread has appointed Nikka Copeland as a Senior Vice President of the newly created Office of Transformation & Strategy.
In this role, Copeland will manage the execution of Panera’s three-year growth plan to drive business model clarity.
Copeland brings a strong track record of leading complex global transformations, unlocking performance and scaling growth throughout more than 20 years of experience across multiple industries, including food service.
Most recently, Copeland served as SVP, Business Services Domain Lead at World Kinect, a leader in the global energy industry. Prior to that, she was World Kinect’s SVP, Finance. She also held finance and strategy positions at National Grid, Aflac, and Burger King Corp. Copeland received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Univerzitet ‘Sv. Kiril I Metódiji’ vo Skopje in the Republic of North Macedonia, a master’s in business administration from the University of Oklahoma, and is a graduate of the advanced management program at Harvard Business School.
Copeland joined the Panera Executive Team on June 24, reporting to CEO Paul Carbone.