McKinsey Quarterly 2023 Number 1

José Andrés: We don’t solve all the problems people have. We solve short-term problems of food and water. But if we could apply the same mentality to the long-term hunger and food issues we face, wow, there wouldn’t be one child hungry anymore in America, for sure, and in the world. And that’s why I like emergencies. It’s important to bring the spirit of emergencies to the long term running of social programs. The big prob lems? They have to be fixed with the boots on the ground. We need more leaders with boots on the ground, making things happen where the problems are. - Katy McLaughlin: Is it correct to say that another part of your approach is leveraging infrastruc ture that is already in place when you arrive at a disaster zone? You don’t go into a region and set up a central cooking and distribution center. Instead, you provide money, logistical support, and ingredients to sometimes hundreds of existing food businesses, and they supply the meals that get distributed to the needy. - José Andrés: That’s right. In Ukraine, we’ve been working with over 500 restaurants, caterers, and food trucks. On August 11, 2022, I met with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to talk about our operations there. I was very proud for him to know that World Central Kitchen is not a foreign organization: this is Ukrainians taking care of Ukrainians. He was very aware, you know. He was very amazed at the quickness and the speed and the reach. I was very happy that I was able to bring some of the Ukrainian team members to the meeting who are the ones running the show. Katy McLaughlin: I want to switch gears and explore how you divide your focus between two very different endeavors. Many of your restau rants are high end and expensive. Your nonprofit is about providing basics to sometimes des perate people. Pursuing these different tracks must require the right talent on your teams, - -

as well as a keen awareness of where you’re needed most.

First, give me a sense of how much time you’re out in the field with the nonprofit.

José Andrés: In Ukraine, my team will have to count the days, but I think I would not be wrong if I told you I have spent about 75 days there, and probably more. Did I activate myself in Beirut [after a large port explosion in 2020]? I was there 24 hours later. I activated myself in India when we went to feed people at multiple hospitals, all at the same time [during the pan demic]. I went to Beira, Mozambique, after the typhoon [in 2019]. I went to many of the big California fires. Did I go to the volcano in La Palma, Spain, myself [in 2021]? Yeah. - Katy McLaughlin: Sometimes, you’re in places where the infrastructure has been destroyed, and you’re communicating with your home office by satellite phone. How is the organization structured so that the show can go on? José Andrés: Sam Bakhshandehpour [José Andrés Group’s president] is the one who, day to day, runs the entire company. But then we have different people in the different verticals. I believe in fairly flat structures, not such pyramidal ones. When things are pyramidal, and if I’m at the very top, nothing will move, because they are waiting for me. If the structures are flatter, it means there are more people in charge in different areas, so nobody waits for José. I have an entire team just for restaurant and bar openings. [In a separate conversation, Bakhshandehpour added that the openings team is part of a central function that provides finance, brand and business development, design, human resources, and service support to all the company’s restaurants.] In this pandemic, if anything, my team got bigger, not smaller. I’ve always invested a lot in the people. I remember in the old days, I’d rather make less money but

‘It’s important to bring the spirit of emergencies to the long term’

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