C.E.O.s Are the Heads of Companies. Should They Also Be the Face?

When the Burger King marketing department suggested that Tom Curtis, the company’s president, take a starring role in its latest television commercial, his answer was swift: No.

Despite regularly talking to large groups — employees, restaurant owners, investors — he was “plenty nervous” about appearing on camera and petrified about what social media visibility might mean.

But Mr. Curtis’s chief marketing officer, Joel Yashinsky, insisted. The commercial would launch a big campaign acknowledging that Burger King locations looked shabby and that quality had suffered, but promising better menus and restaurants. The leader of the company should be the face of the turnaround story.

“I said, OK, but I’m not an actor,’” Mr. Curtis, 62, recounted in an interview. “If you’re going to force me to talk to a camera and if it comes off poorly, if it’s not authentic, if it’s not the right level of humility, then you better not put it out there in social media or on TV.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/20/business/ceo-commercials-advertising.html