New leadership position integrates marketing, menu innovation, customer experience, North America restaurant operations, technology and insights teams to drive long-term growth and innovation

Papa John's International, Inc. (NASDAQ: PZZA) today announced the promotion of Max Wetzel to EVP, Chief Commercial Officer. Mr. Wetzel joined Papa John’s in November 2019 as its Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer, overseeing marketing, menu innovation, customer experience and a transformation office. In his new, expanded role, he will add North America restaurant operations, technology and insights to his responsibilities.

“Over the past two years, Papa John’s has fully transformed itself from a turnaround story to an innovation-driven growth business with enormous development whitespace,” said Papa John’s President and CEO Rob Lynch. “Over the same period, the pandemic also accelerated changes in consumer behavior and expectations that were taking hold prior to 2020 – online ordering, adoption of delivery aggregators, robust loyalty programs and one-to-one marketing – which have contributed to Papa John’s consistent outperformance, thanks to the efforts of Max and his team.

“More tightly integrating our commercial and marketing functions with our technology team as well as our restaurant operations, who play the critical role of delivering for our customers every day, allows us to better realize our long-term growth opportunity. In addition, we’ll be better positioned to take on bold, transformative projects that are enabled by our technology, growing first-party data capabilities and a company-wide innovation culture.”

Since joining Papa John’s almost two years ago, Mr. Wetzel has led Papa John’s successful efforts to strengthen perception of its premium, differentiated brand position in the pizza category, including launching successful menu innovations like Epic Stuffed Crust and Papadias, creating impactful marketing campaigns like Shaq-a-roni and growing the popular Papa Rewards loyalty program to more than 20 million members. Most importantly, he has helped bring a data-driven approach to everything the company does, leading to smarter business decisions that have delivered positive results for the entire Papa John’s system.

About Papa John’s

Papa John’s International, Inc. (NASDAQ: PZZA) opened its doors in 1984 with one goal in mind: BETTER INGREDIENTS. BETTER PIZZA.® Papa John’s believes that using high quality ingredients leads to superior quality pizzas. Its original dough is made of only six ingredients and is fresh, never frozen. Papa John’s tops its pizzas with real cheese made from mozzarella, pizza sauce made with vine-ripened tomatoes that go from vine to can in the same day and meat free of fillers. It was the first national pizza delivery chain to announce the removal of artificial flavors and synthetic colors from its entire food menu. Papa John’s is headquartered in Louisville, Ky. and is the world’s third largest pizza delivery company with more than 5,500 restaurants in 49 countries and territories as of June 28, 2021. For more information about the Company or to order pizza online, visit www.PapaJohns.com or download the Papa John’s mobile app for iOS or Android.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211015005127/en/