When Pillsbury asked Herman Cain to take over as president of its Godfather’s Pizza chain in 1986, they knew the man could deliver. In 1982, Cain had resigned his post as vice president of corporate systems for the company and taken up a new position as manager of the Philadelphia branch of Burger King (also Pillsbury-owned), which until then had been its lowest-ranking region. Once Cain instituted a set of practical service-related reforms — such as making sure that shift managers were not being overworked — that quickly changed. By the time Cain finished and took up Godfather’s presidency three years later, Burger King’s Philadelphia region consistently placed first or second in performance.
As leader of Godfather’s, Cain brought this same set of strategies, and even some of the same managers, with him to the troubled pizza chain. One such person was Spencer Wiggins, a human-resources manager who started at Kraft Foods and whom Cain had specifically sought out to work for him at Burger King. In an interview with National Review Online, Wiggins recalled his first meeting with Cain and how taken he was by Cain’s charisma. “I walked into the [Burger King regional] office, Herman was there by himself, and he acted like he had known me for ten years. As soon as I walked in he said, ‘Spencer Wiggins, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you, man. Where’ve you been?’ So we sat down, we talked for about two hours, and next thing I knew, I was coming on board with Burger King Corporation.”