Candace Jean-Louis

Candace is the National Field People Officer supporting over 14,000 restaurants and currently leads the U.S. Human Resources function for field HR at McDonald’s USA. She assumed this role in February 2021. In her role supporting the US business, she is responsible for leading the HR field team by working to drive business growth through people, bringing purpose, fun and ease to the employee experience.

In Candace’s former role, she served as the East Zone HR Officer serving as the HR advisor to the Zone President and supporting 7,000 restaurants. As a member of the leadership team, Candace was the primary advocate for people as demonstrated by her ongoing leadership, strategic thought partnership & integration of the national people plan into the U.S. Plan to Win.

Before leading people initiatives as the HR Director, Candace led McDonald’s company owned locations as the HR manager in the Atlanta region. Beginning her career with McDonald’s in the Philadelphia region, as a Recruitment & Retention Specialist in 2005, Candace spent several years working on building talent capacity through recruitment efforts. Candace quickly fostered a culture where talent was identified and developed for the system. She also served as a day-to-day advocate and coach for sound recruitment and talent development practices.

Candace is passionate about diversity & inclusion and has led several networks throughout her career. She serves as the lead advisor on McDonald’s external recruitment campaign focused on educating recent college graduates on the long-term benefits of having a career at McDonald’s. Candace also serves as a brand ambassador, by promoting McDonald’s image through personal involvement in local and national HR/professional organizations as well as coaches and encourages leaders to participate in community activities and organizations. She is also a recipient of the McDonald’s LAMP program in 2015, an accelerated development program that provided stretch assignments to accelerate McDonald’s talent pipeline.

Candace holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology with minors in Human Services & Sociology from Villanova University. She began her HR career with Deloitte, an industry leading audit, tax, and advisory financial firm.