Sean Kennedy

As president and CEO, Sean Kennedy has been instrumental in establishing Cowboy Chicken as the premium fast casual restaurant brand that pioneered wood-fired rotisserie chicken. Cowboy Chicken was founded in Dallas in 1981.

Kennedy has worked to refine the menu, build operational systems, grow system-wide sales and strengthen store financial performance. He launched Cowboy Chicken’s franchise program that helped to pave the way for today’s national expansion and has built a strong corporate team to support franchise development, real estate, construction, training, marketing and franchise support efforts.

During his leadership, the brand has been included in Fast Casual’s Top 100 Movers & Shakers list every year since 2011 and in 2017 won the Emerging Chain of the Year award from Restaurant Business and was named one of the Top 25 Most Loved Brands by Foodable. Forbes magazine also chose Cowboy Chicken as one “Hot Restaurant Chain to Buy into Now,” and in 2020, QSR ranked Cowboy Chicken #14 in its 40 Under 40 list of the 40 most exciting fast casual concepts with fewer than 40 units.

Kennedy graduated from Texas Tech University in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in Restaurant, Hotel and Institutional Management. When not focused on improving the overall Cowboy Chicken experience, he can usually be found preaching the finer points of cooking chicken over a real wood-burning fire.