Longtime Aramark Chairman Joseph Neubauer Stepping Down

Joesph Neubauer accepts the 2012 Philadelphia Award. Photo | HughE Dillon

In a statement yesterday, Aramark announced that Joseph Neubauer, the company’s longtime chairman of the board, intends to step down from that role after 30 years. Eric Foss, who succeeded Neubauer as the company’s president and CEO in 2012, has been elected by the company’s board of directors to be the new chairman.

From the company statement:

Foss has been Aramark’s President and Chief Executive Officer since joining the company in 2012, when he was also named to the Board of Directors. During the past three years he has led the company to deliver consecutive years of accelerated revenue and profit growth. Foss took Aramark public in 2013 and returned the company to the New York Stock Exchange, and there has been a substantial increase in shareholder value since the IPO. Prior to Aramark, Foss spent more than 30 years with PepsiCo and Pepsi Bottling Group (PBG), where he ultimately served as CEO of PepsiCo’s Pepsi Beverages Company and Chairman & CEO of PBG.

Neubauer joined Aramark in 1979 as Executive Vice President of Finance and Development, CFO and a member of the Board. He was elected President in 1981, CEO in 1983 and Chairman in 1984. Prior to Neubauer’s retirement as CEO in 2012, the company grew from a $2.5 billion business largely concentrated in the U.S. to a $13 billion global services provider.

In a profile in the Inquirer, Jeff Gammage writes that Neubauer came to America “alone, on a ship, as a boy of 14” knowing “only the English he’d learned from watching John Wayne movies.”

As to his future, [Neubauer] said, “I just retired from running the company, not from life,” and friends said they were certain of Neubauer’s continued involvement in good works.

“He may be stepping down as chair of Aramark, but he’s still going to be a civic leader, no ifs, ands, or buts,” former Gov. Ed Rendell said Tuesday night, describing Neubauer as a force who helped create the National Constitution Center and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, and in the Barnes Foundation’s move to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

The change is expected to take place on February 3rd after Aramark’s annual shareholders meeting.