Our Leadership

Amarpal leads Americana Restaurants multi-brand, multi-country restaurant portfolio across MENA and Kazakhstan.

He joined as the COO of KFC in 2017 to lead the transformation and turnaround of Americana’s largest brand with close to a thousand restaurants across 12 countries and was promoted to CEO in 2019.

Amarpal has been instrumental in fostering a performance driven – values led culture deep into the organization and building a world-class management team. He leads Americana’s strategic vision of becoming the fastest growing restaurant operator in the world through a laser sharp focus on efficient capital deployment, promoting innovation and creativity, turning around brands and markets, and ensuring right talent at the right place.

Before joining Americana, Amarpal served as Vice President and Brand Head, Texas Chicken International for Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Europe. He was responsible for expansion of the brand in 10 international markets from 2011 to 2017 and negotiated three of the largest franchise development agreements in the Company’s history in Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia.

During his 17-year career at Wendy’s from 1994 to 2011, Amar managed both equity and franchise business portfolio for the brand across USA and International markets.

He holds an MBA from the Richard Ivey Business School, University of Western Ontario, Canada.

Rahul Mathur is the Chief Financial Officer at Americana Restaurants, leading the Finance, Legal, Business Development, and Investor Relations functions.

With over 25 years of international experience, Rahul brings a strong track record in finance leadership, business transformation, and value creation across Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa. In his role, he is focused on strengthening financial discipline, enhancing governance frameworks, and supporting the company’s long-term growth ambitions.

Prior to joining Americana Restaurants, Rahul served as CFO – Europe & ANZ at Reckitt, where he led large, complex operations across multiple markets and delivered strong business performance. Throughout his career, he has held senior finance leadership roles, driving large-scale transformation initiatives, improving profitability, and optimizing capital efficiency.

Rahul is known for his strategic partnership with business leaders and his ability to build high-performing finance teams that enable sustainable growth and operational excellence.

Rahul is a Chartered Accountant from ICAEW and holds an MBA from the Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi.

Harsh is the Chief Operating Officer for KFC & Pizza Hut at Americana Restaurants.

He began his career in the Americana Group as a Senior Director - Corporate Finance & Strategy function. He was part of the transformation team post-acquisition in 2016 and played a pivotal role in divestments of non-core businesses and defining the new organization structure.

Harsh has led the finance function to be a true business partner, delivered on multiple cost and cash efficiency projects, and partnered with the IT team on key technology project implementations.

In his current role, Harsh leads operations for KFC & Pizza Hut across priority markets, focusing on driving operational excellence and delivering consistent customer experiences at scale.

Prior to his role in Americana, Harsh served as an Associate - Investments at Alabbar Enterprises (Family Office of H.E. Mohamed Alabbar - Investments) in UAE from August 2015 to July 2016. He served in Standard Chartered Bank in Mumbai as Analyst - M&A (South Asia) from July 2013 to August 2014, then worked in Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore as Analyst and Associate - M&A (Southeast Asia) from September 2014 to July 2015.

He holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, a CFA level-3 from the CFA Institute, USA, and a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics & Communication from Jaypee Institute of Information Technology in India.

Vishal is the CDO business. He joined Americana in 2020.

In his role, Vishal leads Americana’s largest restaurant portfolio across MENA and Kazakhstan. A strong advocate of bringing together consumer orientation and commercial outcomes, he drives a culture of consumer-centric operating excellence within the team, and with the franchisors. He has built a multi-cultural team with diverse experiences that continues to build best in class executional capability for the business.

Before joining Americana, Vishal was the CEO for New Supply Business driving Cloud Kitchens, Private Brands, and Virtual Brands at Swiggy- India’s leading food delivery operator. Through his career, Vishal has held various commercial leadership roles across India, Indonesia & the U.K. in consumer goods companies like Reckitt, PepsiCo and Britannia.

Vishal holds an MBA from Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, India, in addition to holding a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, India.

Dusan joined Americana Restaurants in early 2021 as Chief Development Officer and is responsible for the Development function, including Real Estate, Design, Construction, Maintenance, Sales and Catering, across 12 countries.

As the CDO, Dusan has led the design revamp for most of Americana brands, with a focus on off premise sales channels and new openings through carve outs of current stores. He plays a key role in organizing the development processes such as data driven market planning, transparent new openings-remodels workflow and strengthening Company negotiation capabilities through team training and creating market specific rent strategies.

Prior to joining Americana, Dusan worked with AmRest for 19 years, where he went from team member to Shift Supervisor, District Coach, Market President and then to Brand Operations President (Brand COO) of KFC in Europe and Russia.

He holds a Bachelor of Economics and Management from College of Economic Studies in Prague.

Hesham is the Chief Operating Officer – Multi Brands at Americana Restaurants, where he leads Hardee’s, Krispy Kreme, and Baskin Robbins, bringing these brands under focused operational leadership to strengthen performance and consistency across MENA and Kazakhstan. He also continues to lead Egypt and Iraq.

Hesham Talaat has been with Americana Restaurants for over three decades. Through his career journey with Americana, he has grown within the organization, starting from store-level operations to leading some of the company’s most significant business portfolios.

Having consistently demonstrated the ability to transform business performance, Hesham has been instrumental in leading the turnaround of operations in Morocco, as well as KFC businesses in Kuwait, KSA, and Egypt, driving both revenue growth and profitability. Prior to his current role, he served as Senior Area Director for KFC across KSA, Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, and Bahrain.

His strong connection with restaurant teams, stakeholders, and franchisors, combined with his disciplined approach and passion for operational excellence, has enabled sustained success across markets.

Operating with a people-first mindset, Hesham has continuously focused on developing talent and building strong teams, ensuring a robust pipeline of future leaders within the organization.

Hesham holds a Bachelor’s degree in Law from Ain Shams University and is a lifelong learner.

Maria Escobar leads the Human Capital function at Americana Restaurants, driving the people strategy that underpins the company’s growth, operational excellence, and long-term performance across the MENA region and Kazakhstan.

In her role, Maria drives talent acquisition, leadership development, performance management, learning and capability building, business partnership, and organizational culture initiatives. She plays a central role in ensuring Americana attracts, develops, and retains high-potential leaders at all levels, while fostering a culture where diverse teams are engaged, valued, and empowered to deliver consistently strong results.

With over 20 years of global experience in human resources and organizational development, Maria has worked across the UAE, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. She brings a strong track record of leading strategic HR transformations, embedding people-centered practices into business decision-making, and delivering high-impact initiatives in complex, fast-paced environments.

Prior to joining Americana Restaurants, Maria held senior HR leadership roles, supporting organizations through large-scale culture change, talent transformation, and performance optimization. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Human Resources and Artificial Intelligence, and is committed to building environments where people can grow, belong, and contribute meaningfully to sustainable business success.

Kareem Abughazaleh is the General Manager – Growth Brands at Americana Restaurants, overseeing Wimpy, Chicken Tikka, Malak Al Tawouq and Carpo businesses.

In his role, Kareem leads the growth and performance of these brands across the region, with a focus on brand development, operational excellence, and sustainable commercial outcomes. He drives execution through close collaboration with cross-functional teams and partners, supporting aggressive growth through disciplined on-ground performance.

Before joining Americana Restaurants, Kareem came from a solid entrepreneurial background, having co-founded iKcon and scaling it into the second-largest cloud kitchen operator in MENA before its acquisition by REEF Technology. He is also the founder of Foodie Holdings, which operates some of the leading independently owned catering brands in the UAE.

Earlier in his career, Kareem worked at Del Monte Fresh Produce in Miami, Florida, where he held operations leadership roles overseeing transportation, logistics, and distribution across North America.

Kareem holds a degree in Finance from Georgetown University, Washington DC, and an MBA from London Business School.