Guy Russo

About Guy

Guy Russo is best known as the architect of one of Australia's most dramatic corporate turnarounds. As CEO of Kmart — part of Wesfarmers' Department Stores Division, which he led from 2016 — he rebuilt a struggling retail brand into one of the country's most popular and profitable businesses, recording a profit increase in 2018 that broke sales sector records. Before Kmart, he spent 33 years with McDonald's, working his way from teenager flipping burgers through various Australian management roles to Managing Director and CEO of McDonald's Australia, before moving overseas as President of McDonald's in the greater China region — one of the most operationally complex markets in global retail.

What gives Guy's story its particular weight is the consistency of the thread: a belief that internal talent development and inclusive management are the true drivers of commercial performance, demonstrated across wildly different cultural and operational contexts. He served as Director and Chairman of Ronald McDonald House Charities in Australia and Hong Kong, and as President of OneSky, an international not-for-profit supporting orphaned and at-risk children across Asia. Since stepping back from full-time executive roles he has continued as Senior Advisor to Wesfarmers Limited and as Chairman and major investor of Guzman y Gomez, applying the same principles at a different scale.

Guy is a compelling choice for retail, franchise, and consumer-facing industry events, as well as leadership conferences focused on culture, talent, and diversity and inclusion. His story speaks directly to anyone grappling with underperforming business units, major cultural change, or the challenge of doing business across vastly different markets. He draws on four decades of front-line and executive experience to deliver practical insight rather than polished theory — the kind of perspective that only comes from having genuinely built things and fixed things at scale.