By Wailin Wong | McDonald’s Corp. marketing chief Mary Dillon is leaving the fast food giant to take the top job at U.S. Cellular Corp., replacing John “Jack” Rooney as chief executive of the country’s sixth-largest wireless carrier.
Dillon, 48, will start her new role as president and CEO on June 1. She also will join Chicago-based U.S. Cellular’s board.
LeRoy Carlson Jr., U.S. Cellular’s chairman, said the company conducted a broad search beyond the technology sector, looking for an executive with a strong marketing background who could expand the carrier’s efforts in customer loyalty and branding.
“Some of the very best companies in America in creating customer satisfaction are not in the telecommunications industry,” said Carlson Jr., CEO of Telephone and Data Systems Inc., which owns 82 percent of U.S. Cellular. “If we restricted (the recruiters) just to telecom, we could have been missing those very fine companies that were creating great customer satisfaction through great marketing and branding.”
U.S. Cellular announced in February that Rooney was retiring this year after a decade at the helm. The , a South Side native was an executive at Ameritech before joining U.S. Cellular in 2000 as CEO. Dillon is stepping into a corporate culture fashioned after Rooney’s “dynamic organization” business philosophy, which espouses that capable leadership leads to satisfied workers and, ultimately, satisfied customers.
Dillon was unavailable for comment Monday, but said in a statement that “I share U.S. Cellular’s values, and am proud to have been selected to guide the company’s Dynamic Organization to achieve profitable growth over the long term.”
Dillon was formerly global chief marketing officer and executive vice president at McDonald’s. Her major accomplishments include bolstering the company’s health credentials and making its brand more relevant, said Edward Jones analyst Jack Russo. Dillon joined McDonald’s in 2005 from PepsiCo Inc., where she was president of the Quaker Foods division.
McDonald’s spokesman Walt Riker said the company is beginning the search process for Dillon’s replacement and stressed that “we’re well-staffed as we head into important marketing initiatives such as the upcoming World Cup, which we sponsor, and blockbuster movie properties like Shrek 4.”
“It definitely is a loss (to McDonald’s), but at the same time, it’s a compliment — people who are executives at McDonald’s get plucked off all the time,” Russo said. “They do have a pretty deep bench.”
