Damola Adamolekun is a Nigerian-American business executive and restauranteur. He was the first Black CEO of P. F. Chang’s, a major Asian-American fusion restaurant chain. Adamolekun was born in Nigeria to Yoruba parents. His father is a neurologist, and his mother is a pharmacist. He spent his early childhood in Zimbabwe and the Netherlands before moving to Springfield, Illinois, when he was nine. He attended high school in Columbia, Maryland.
Adamolekun holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Political Science from Brown University, where he served as President of the student investment group and played on the university’s championship football team. He later obtained an MBA from Harvard Business School.
In 2017, Adamolekun joined Paulson and Company, an investment firm founded by hedge fund billionaire John Paulson. In 2019, Damola proposed that Paulson’s firm purchase P.F. Chang’s, headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona. After the acquisition, Damola became the company’s Chief Strategy Officer, and in 2020, Damola became P. F. Chang’s first Black CEO at the age of 31.
Adamolekun navigated P.F. Chang’s through the Covid-19 pandemic and returned it to profitability with annual revenues of $1 billion. He also launched P. F. Chang’s To Go, a concept that led to the growth of the brand’s delivery business.
In 2024, the Orlando, Florida-based seafood chain, Red Lobster, filed bankruptcy with over $1 billion in debt. The company was acquired by Fortress Investment Group, which appointed Damola as CEO, making him the youngest CEO in that company’s history. Adamolekun says he was inspired to lead Red Lobster’s turnaround because of its history as the “first really successful casual dining chain in America at scale.”
Adamolekun has held board positions at Inday, NuLeaf, International Tower Hill Mines. (NYSE: THM), and the National Restaurant Association. He also serves as a managing partner at Paulson & Co., the hedge fund that purchased the chain for $700 million in 2019. He is the founder and president of Cedar Lane Investments.
“I always found business interesting, even when I was young,” he says. “It captivated me intellectually. I started working when I was in high school and invested everything I made. I opened my first stock portfolio when I was 16.”
Mr. Adamolekun has been featured in numerous publications, including Business Insider, Fox Business, Bloomberg News, CNBC, New York Business Journal, and the Harvard Business Review.
Adamolekun starts each day at 4 a.m. with an eight-mile run to maintain his “calm, relaxed, autonomous nervous system.” He currently lives in Scottsdale, Arizona.
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Iman Milner, “Damola Adamolekun, CEO of P.F Chang’s Says My Work is My Life,” Black Enterprise, May 22, 2023, https://www.blackenterprise.com/damola-adamolekun-ceo-of-p-f-changs-says-my-work-is-my-life/
National Restaurant Association, “Damola Adamolekun, biography,” https://restaurant.org/damola-adamolekun/
