Andrew Lynch, the former chief executive of SSP, is to become group chief executive of Nando’s, the Capricorn Ventures-backed international chain of peri peri chicken restaurants.
Lynch, who stepped down as chief executive of the travel concessions operator last July after nine years in the role, will succeed David Niven from the beginning of March following a handover period.
As M&C Report revealed last August, Niven is retiring from a holding a full-time position in the sector but will look at non-executive and consultancy roles going forward.
Niven has been with Nando’s, which operates more than 1,100 restaurants across 23 countries, for over eight years, becoming group chief executive at the start of 2011.
Lynch is the former finance director at Compass Group. He became chief executive of SSP in 2004 and led the buyout from Compass two years later.
The company currently operates c350 sites under its eponymous and Gourmet Burger Kitchen brands in the UK. The group’s UK operation, which is overseen by managing director Rob Papps, will open its first site at a roadside services station later this spring at Extra’s Motorway Service Area (MSA) on the M40 (junction 2) at Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire.
It will follow this with its first airport site at Gatwick’s South Terminal, which will open this summer.
The majority of the group’s restaurants are operated under franchise apart from in South Africa, which has a 50/50 split between franchised and company-owned, and in the UK and US, which is 100% company owned.
