Red Lobster’s 36-year-old CEO led the company after bankruptcy. Now he’s plotting the ‘greatest comeback in the history of the restaurant industry’
“Of course it’s risky,” Damola Adamolekun told Fortune’s Ruth Umoh. “I took over a company that’s bankrupt and had a lot of problems.”
But under the leadership of Damola Adamolekun, 36, who was previously the CEO of P.F. Chang’s, Red Lobster has officially turned the ship around. As the company continues to recover from bankruptcy, the chain expects positive net income in fiscal 2026, and adjusted EBIDTA is expected to grow 43% from fiscal 2025 to 2027.
“I think this is going to be the greatest comeback in the history of the restaurant industry,” Adamolekun told Fortune’s Ruth Umoh in her vodcast series, The CEO Playbook. “Of course it’s risky; I took over a company that’s bankrupt and had a lot of problems.”
But Adamolekun, who was featured on Fortune’s inaugural 100 Most Powerful People in Business list, knows about taking risks. He led P.F. Chang’s, an Asian-fusion chain, through the COVID pandemic, returned the company to profitability, and drove major operational and strategic change at the company. Under his leadership, P.F. Chang’s started generating revenues of about $1 billion, according to the National Restaurant Association.
That was “a crazy feat on its face, given the challenges the restaurant and hospitality industry is recovering from: the worst pandemic in 100 years, supply-chain challenges, a shallow labor pool, and a still-uncertain economy,” according to the National Restaurant Association.
But for Adamolekun, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker, that reward was worth the risk—and it could be the same at Red Lobster.
“Investing is the business of risk assessment, and I think you should manage your career the same way,” he told Fortune’s Umoh. “Risk on its own isn’t something to avoid. You just need adequate return.”
What Damola Adamolekun has planned for Red Lobster
Similar to his P.F. Chang’s playbook, Adamolekun is laser-focused on shattering inefficiencies at Red Lobster. Namely, he said he’d never bring back the endless-shrimp promotion, one of the factors that propelled Red Lobster into bankruptcy in the first place.
It’s “because I know how to do math,” Adamolekun said plainly during an interview with last November. While the $20 endless shrimp deal made quite a splash with customers, the company suffered millions in operating losses.