Anita Vanderveer began her time at Panera in January 2019. As Senior Vice President, Chief People Officer, she leads people capability strategies and is tasked with leading the company’s world-class employment experience in the areas of people, culture, brand, and organizational development and design. She reports directly to the CEO. Anita boasts over 25 years in restaurant operations and human resources. This extensive experience, paired with her belief that the customers experience will never exceed the employees experience, has led her to much success in leadership positions at Pizza Hut/YUM brands, Pinnacle, and most recently, SONIC Drive-In. Among her most notable accomplishments, Anita is credited with aligning HR strategies with business goals while inspiring teams to embrace change. She’s been a close collaborator and key advisor to organizational leaders and executive teams. Anita has played a key role in multi-year transformation strategies to accelerate business growth and has a strong track record of building effective HR teams while providing deep strategic insight that has led to increased same store sales and new unit growth.

Anita holds a bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership from Mountain State University, and a master’s degree in education, human resource development from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

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