---
title: "Chipotle’s COO Uses This Test to Find People to Promote. Here Are the 4 Attributes He Seeks."
url: https://burnaze.com/article/5ec9c353-bf14-4bbd-aa16-e34c392a0dad
source: "Entrepreneur Franchise"
original_url: https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/chipotles-coo-uses-this-test-to-find-his-next-vice-president
author: "Sherin Shibu"
category: "Mexican"
industry: "Restaurants"
segment: "Mexican"
topics: ["People"]
published: 2026-07-15T14:55:56.000Z
modified: 2026-11-01T22:32:12.797Z
image: https://www.entrepreneur.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/Chipotle-0726-g-2271667195.jpg
---

# Chipotle’s COO Uses This Test to Find People to Promote. Here Are the 4 Attributes He Seeks.

**TL;DR:** Chipotle's COO Jason Kidd promotes employees based on four key traits, which he identifies through weekly dinners with regional team members at various Chipotle stores. The company promoted 23,000 employees last year, with all regional vice presidents being internal hires.

*By Sherin Shibu, originally published in Entrepreneur Franchise on 2026-07-15. [Read the original](https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/chipotles-coo-uses-this-test-to-find-his-next-vice-president).*

## Key facts

- Chipotle promoted 23,000 employees last year, and all of the company’s regional vice presidents were internal hires.
- Chipotle’s chief operating officer, Jason Kidd, identifies who is worthy of a promotion by having dinner with them.
- Every week, Kidd pops into about a dozen Chipotle stores and has a 90-minute dinner at the end of the day with three to four members of the location’s regional team.
- When hiring, promoting or investing in employees, company leaders look for everything from how polite they are to the receptionist to “side quests” or self-driven hobbies. They also look at the state of someone’s sneakers, how well they interact with the taxi driver and how they react to a waiter getting their breakfast order wrong.
- While other C-suite executives have their own ways to spot high-level talent, Chipotle’s chief operating officer, Jason Kidd, identifies his next crop of leaders by having a meal with them.
- Kidd recently told Business Insider that he pops into about a dozen Chipotle stores every week. At the end of the day, he has a 90-minute dinner with three or four members of the location’s regional team.
- The dinner serves three purposes: It helps solidify day-to-day operations, it gives him insight into how employees think and it presents an opportunity to look for promising new talent deserving of an internal promotion.
- “We’re constantly identifying internal talent during these visits, seeing how people show up and see how they react,” Kidd, who joined Chipotle last year after working as COO of Taco Bell, said. Chipotle promoted 23,000 employees last year, and all of the company’s regional vice presidents were internal hires, according to Kidd. Further, 85% of general managers and 83% of field leaders were internal promotions last year.

## Story

When hiring, promoting or investing in employees, company leaders look for everything from how polite they are to the receptionist to “side quests” or self-driven hobbies.

## Entities

- QSR (sector)
- Entrepreneur (publication)
- Taco Bell (company)
- Chipotle (company)
- leadership development (topic)
- company culture (topic)
- Sherin Shibu (person)
- Jason Kidd (person)
- employee promotion (topic)
- gusto! (company)
- internal hiring (topic)

---
Originally reported by Sherin Shibu, Entrepreneur Franchise (https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/chipotles-coo-uses-this-test-to-find-his-next-vice-president). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/5ec9c353-bf14-4bbd-aa16-e34c392a0dad).