The CEO of Cracker Barrel defended her company’s strategy to a room full of Wall Street investors Tuesday. Sandy Cochran says more customers and new menu items will keep the company on the right track. Her remarks come as the Lebanon-based restaurant chain gears up for a fight over who sits on its board of directors.
Most of Cochran’s presentation was pretty standard, but she took a moment to rattle off the names of some of the people who sit on Cracker Barrel’s board.
“Jim Bradford, who was the CEO of a New York Stock Exchange company and is now the dean of the business school at Vanderbilt. We welcomed Tom Barr who the VP of global coffee at Starbucks. Cole Peterson, former chief people officer at Walmart.”
But those qualifications aren’t enough for Sardar Biglari. As the company’s largest shareholder, he says the board is ‘blundering’ and not doing enough to push for higher profits. Biglari says he’s hoping for ‘creative disruption’ at a shareholder meeting next month, where he and an associate will try to win board seats.
Biglari owns nearly 18 percent of Cracker Barrel. Last week, federal regulators slapped him with an $850,000 fine for buying too much of the company’s stock too quickly.
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