Nai De León Named Yum! Brands Chief People Officer

How long does it take to know a company well enough to shape its culture? For Naiara De León, about a decade, and she spent most of it on the outside.

Yum! Brands has named Naiara, who goes by Nai, its Chief People and Culture Officer, effective 1 November, entrusting its global people strategy to an executive who advised the KFC and Taco Bell owner for years before ever joining it.

"Nai is an exceptional leader with deep expertise in talent, organisational transformation and leadership development, and she has already made an impact on our business since joining Yum!," says Chris Turner, CEO of Yum! Brands.

"Her proven ability to develop leaders, shape culture and drive transformation makes her the ideal person to lead our global People & Culture organisation."

What she takes on

From 1 November, Nai will run Yum!'s global people strategy, with a remit covering talent, leadership development, total rewards, organisational effectiveness and people operations. She reports to Chris and joins the group's Global Leadership Team.

Yum! franchises or operates more than 63,000 restaurants across 155 countries and territories, under the KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Habit Burger & Grill brands.

Most of those workers answer to franchisees rather than head office, which makes building a common culture and a leadership pipeline harder than the headcount alone suggests.

A decade-long head start

Most incoming people chiefs spend their first year learning the business. Nai had a head start measured in years.

She joined Yum! in August 2025 as Chief Talent and Centres of Excellence Officer, leading its teams for total rewards, learning and development and talent acquisition. Before that she spent two decades at Bain & Company, advising global organisations on large-scale transformations.

For nearly ten of those years, her client was Yum! itself. As a Bain adviser she worked alongside the company's leaders on growth and transformation, a vantage point that gave her a close read on its culture and ambitions long before she was on the payroll.

A managed handover

Yum! brought Nai in a little over a year ago, handed her the talent brief and let her work under the outgoing chief before naming her to the job, the kind of planned handover that spares a people function the disruption of an outside hire.

Nai succeeds Tracy Skeans, who is retiring after more than 25 years with Yum!, most recently as Chief Operating Officer and Chief People and Culture Officer.

"I'm honoured to have the opportunity to serve as Yum!'s Chief People and Culture Officer," says Nai. "Our people and culture are a tremendous competitive advantage, and I'm excited to build on the strong foundation Tracy and our team have established.

"I look forward to continuing to develop exceptional leaders, strengthen our culture and help our teams around the world unlock their full potential."