Skip to main content
Oct 20, 2020

McDonald’s general counsel retires

Mahrukh Hussain takes on role of interim general counsel and secretary

McDonald’s Corporation corporate executive vice president, general counsel and secretary Jerome Krulewitch has retired from the company.

McDonald’s says in an SEC filing that Krulewitch told the company on October 12 that he was stepping down, effective immediately. According to the filing, he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and has been advised by doctors to leave his role.

The company says a search is underway and that until Krulewitch’s successor is identified Mahrukh Hussain will take on the role of interim general counsel and secretary. Hussain was serving as US general counsel.

Krulewitch became corporate general counsel and secretary in 2017 having spent 15 years at McDonald’s in various leadership positions with increasing responsibilities, such as vice president for litigation between 2002 and 2005, senior vice president and general counsel for the Americas from 2005 to 2011, and senior vice president for global legal operations from 2011 to 2017.

‘During his tenure… Krulewitch has leveraged his significant litigation experience to lead McDonald’s through various brand challenges related to McDonald’s core business,’ his employee biography states. ‘In addition, he played a leadership role for two of the most significant franchising transactions in McDonald’s history by driving the strategy, selection of and negotiation with key strategic partners to franchise almost 4,000 restaurants in China, Hong Kong and Latin America.’ 

Before joining McDonald’s Krulewitch was a litigation partner at Winston & Strawn and was for a decade an assistant US attorney in the Northern District of Illinois.

A request for comment from the company was not returned.

Ben Maiden

Ben Maiden is the editor-at-large of Governance Intelligence, an IR Media publication, having joined the company in December 2016. He is based in New York. Ben was previously managing editor of Compliance Reporter, covering regulatory and compliance...