Full Name
Tariq Hassan
Title
US CMO & Chief Experience Officer
Company
McDonald's (former)
Bio
Tariq is a transformational, global business leader whose career sits at the intersection of culture, sports, commerce, and technology. With more than 25 years of experience spanning Fortune 50 companies to fast growth startups across a wide range of categories. He’s recognized for modernizing organizations through digital transformation and harnessing culture to drive relevance required to grow in a digital economy.
Most recently, Tariq served as U.S. Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer at McDonald’s, leading marketing and digital transformation for the $60B business across the 14,000-franchise network, revitalizing the iconic brand by reconnecting with youth fandom leveraging culture and digital modernization.
Under his leadership, McDonald’s delivered sustained, industry-leading growth while building one of the largest loyalty ecosystems in retail, expanded from less 20 million to more than 90 million members and doubling digital sales. Creating breakthrough cultural moments -- via viral product launches to creator-collaborations – to drive record fan participation, brand love and business results.
Central to this transformation was a fan-first mindset rooted in food, sports, music and entertainment culture. Modernizing marquee sports properties like the 23XI NASCAR partnership to expand McDonald’s presence in motorsports and navigating NIL to reenergize the McDonald’s All-American Game, the historic high-school basketball showcase, to create youth-relevant omnichannel platforms that spanned broadcast, digital, social, content and experiential that delivered record engagement, attendance, and viewership.
Prior to McDonald’s, Tariq served as Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer at Petco, where he repositioned the retailer into a category-defining pet health and wellness platform. Through a purpose-driven brand strategy, omnichannel innovation, and advanced customer analytics to create an integrated ecosystem spanning retail, services, subscriptions, and digital experiences, returning Petco to sustained growth and a successful IPO.
Earlier in his career, Tariq held global leadership roles at Bank of America and Hewlett-Packard, overseeing enterprise brand and digital marketing, where he unified brand expression across multiple lines of business to deepen client relationships. Experienced in leveraging the culture of sports he used large-scale sponsorship portfolios to innovate brand activation across major sports, entertainment, and technology platforms, to strengthening brand relevance and growth.
As a founding executive of Element79 Partners -- the largest agency start-up in U.S. history – he led strategy for a diverse portfolio of global brands including PepsiCo, Quaker, Lowe’s, GM, and Celebrity Cruises. Tariq’s foundation in sports marketing began during his agency career, where he played a central role in shaping the global trajectory of the Gatorade brand for nearly a decade. He helped guide its international expansion, athlete partnerships successfully positioning the brand at intersection of performance science and sports culture. He also led the strategy to create and launch Propel Fitness Water, pioneering the fitness hydration category. His work spanned a dedicated sports practice engaging professional and collegiate, Olympic, and grassroots programs — building relationships with teams and athletes worldwide.
Today, Tariq is Founder and CEO of Light21, an advisory firm helping startups and Fortune-scale companies modernize marketing through AI and data platforms to create digitally enabled customer ecosystems. He also serves as a Google CMO-in-Residence while advising emerging technology and sports ventures.
Known for building high-performing teams and a champion of inclusive leadership, Tariq has received industry honors – including one of Forbes world’s most influential CMOs. He also serves on multiple boards, advisory councils and lecturer at leading universities.
Tariq holds a master’s degree from Northwestern University, where currently serves on the Medill School Board of Advisers, and an honors bachelor’s degree from the University of Western Ontario. He is an active in global nonprofit initiatives focused on cancer research and economic opportunity and youth empowerment.
Tariq has more than 20 years of experience in global marketing; brand strategy, agency management, communications, innovation and insights across diverse categories, segments and markets. His expertise lies in harnessing data to build global brands that create enduring value-based customer relationships with brands.
He began his career in advertising, progressing through international strategic planning, executive assignments with D’Arcy, Leo Burnett and FCB before partnering to found Element79 Partners, the largest advertising agency start up in US history.
Tariq went on to hold global marketing roles with HP, Omnicom Group, and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch before joining Petco as Chief Marketing Officer. There he led the repositioning of the company from a pet supply retailer to a category-defining pet health and wellness company. After leading Petco to a successful IPO in 2021 he was recruited to his current role at McDonald’s.
Tariq has proven record for leveraging culture to create award winning consumer-focused strategies that breakthrough in the market. A values-based leader, he is passionate about creating purpose driven cultures that unlock the power of high performing teams that drive results. His impact has been recognized by the industry as a two-time Forbes Most Influential CMO, Ad Age CMO of the year, Adweek Brand Genius and Northwestern Medill Hall of Fame.
Committed to creating inclusive and empowering workplace culture, he has led development of DEI&B corporate strategies, served as executive sponsor for employee resources groups and served on various advisory boards for the Ad Counsel, ANA, Adweek, MMA, Tik Tok, Google and Meta. He sits on the global board of Education for Employment, an NGO that provides job training and placement for marginalized youth across the Middle East and North Africa. He worked with the Obama administration to counter-message Americans youth at risk to religious extremism and systemic discrimination. He has been recognized for his efforts with the Adweek DEI Champion, Gold House A100 and Ad Color Legend.
Tariq earned an honors bachelor’s degree from University of Western Ontario and a master’s degree in integrated marketing communications from Northwestern University where he currently sits on the Medill School Board of Advisers.
Most recently, Tariq served as U.S. Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer at McDonald’s, leading marketing and digital transformation for the $60B business across the 14,000-franchise network, revitalizing the iconic brand by reconnecting with youth fandom leveraging culture and digital modernization.
Under his leadership, McDonald’s delivered sustained, industry-leading growth while building one of the largest loyalty ecosystems in retail, expanded from less 20 million to more than 90 million members and doubling digital sales. Creating breakthrough cultural moments -- via viral product launches to creator-collaborations – to drive record fan participation, brand love and business results.
Central to this transformation was a fan-first mindset rooted in food, sports, music and entertainment culture. Modernizing marquee sports properties like the 23XI NASCAR partnership to expand McDonald’s presence in motorsports and navigating NIL to reenergize the McDonald’s All-American Game, the historic high-school basketball showcase, to create youth-relevant omnichannel platforms that spanned broadcast, digital, social, content and experiential that delivered record engagement, attendance, and viewership.
Prior to McDonald’s, Tariq served as Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer at Petco, where he repositioned the retailer into a category-defining pet health and wellness platform. Through a purpose-driven brand strategy, omnichannel innovation, and advanced customer analytics to create an integrated ecosystem spanning retail, services, subscriptions, and digital experiences, returning Petco to sustained growth and a successful IPO.
Earlier in his career, Tariq held global leadership roles at Bank of America and Hewlett-Packard, overseeing enterprise brand and digital marketing, where he unified brand expression across multiple lines of business to deepen client relationships. Experienced in leveraging the culture of sports he used large-scale sponsorship portfolios to innovate brand activation across major sports, entertainment, and technology platforms, to strengthening brand relevance and growth.
As a founding executive of Element79 Partners -- the largest agency start-up in U.S. history – he led strategy for a diverse portfolio of global brands including PepsiCo, Quaker, Lowe’s, GM, and Celebrity Cruises. Tariq’s foundation in sports marketing began during his agency career, where he played a central role in shaping the global trajectory of the Gatorade brand for nearly a decade. He helped guide its international expansion, athlete partnerships successfully positioning the brand at intersection of performance science and sports culture. He also led the strategy to create and launch Propel Fitness Water, pioneering the fitness hydration category. His work spanned a dedicated sports practice engaging professional and collegiate, Olympic, and grassroots programs — building relationships with teams and athletes worldwide.
Today, Tariq is Founder and CEO of Light21, an advisory firm helping startups and Fortune-scale companies modernize marketing through AI and data platforms to create digitally enabled customer ecosystems. He also serves as a Google CMO-in-Residence while advising emerging technology and sports ventures.
Known for building high-performing teams and a champion of inclusive leadership, Tariq has received industry honors – including one of Forbes world’s most influential CMOs. He also serves on multiple boards, advisory councils and lecturer at leading universities.
Tariq holds a master’s degree from Northwestern University, where currently serves on the Medill School Board of Advisers, and an honors bachelor’s degree from the University of Western Ontario. He is an active in global nonprofit initiatives focused on cancer research and economic opportunity and youth empowerment.
Tariq has more than 20 years of experience in global marketing; brand strategy, agency management, communications, innovation and insights across diverse categories, segments and markets. His expertise lies in harnessing data to build global brands that create enduring value-based customer relationships with brands.
He began his career in advertising, progressing through international strategic planning, executive assignments with D’Arcy, Leo Burnett and FCB before partnering to found Element79 Partners, the largest advertising agency start up in US history.
Tariq went on to hold global marketing roles with HP, Omnicom Group, and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch before joining Petco as Chief Marketing Officer. There he led the repositioning of the company from a pet supply retailer to a category-defining pet health and wellness company. After leading Petco to a successful IPO in 2021 he was recruited to his current role at McDonald’s.
Tariq has proven record for leveraging culture to create award winning consumer-focused strategies that breakthrough in the market. A values-based leader, he is passionate about creating purpose driven cultures that unlock the power of high performing teams that drive results. His impact has been recognized by the industry as a two-time Forbes Most Influential CMO, Ad Age CMO of the year, Adweek Brand Genius and Northwestern Medill Hall of Fame.
Committed to creating inclusive and empowering workplace culture, he has led development of DEI&B corporate strategies, served as executive sponsor for employee resources groups and served on various advisory boards for the Ad Counsel, ANA, Adweek, MMA, Tik Tok, Google and Meta. He sits on the global board of Education for Employment, an NGO that provides job training and placement for marginalized youth across the Middle East and North Africa. He worked with the Obama administration to counter-message Americans youth at risk to religious extremism and systemic discrimination. He has been recognized for his efforts with the Adweek DEI Champion, Gold House A100 and Ad Color Legend.
Tariq earned an honors bachelor’s degree from University of Western Ontario and a master’s degree in integrated marketing communications from Northwestern University where he currently sits on the Medill School Board of Advisers.
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