Wingstop appoints former Wagamama CMO as chief growth officer
Emma Colquhoun takes on the newly created role of chief growth officer, while CMO Dirujan Sabesan becomes chief brand officer.
Fast-food chain Wingstop UK has created two new roles to lead marketing – chief growth officer and chief brand officer.
Former Wagamama chief marketing and commercial officer Emma Colquhoun is taking on the role of chief growth officer. She describes this role as being about taking “already outstanding growth to the next level”.
Meanwhile, Dirujan Sabesan, who was appointed as Wingstop UK’s first CMO in November 2024, takes on the new role of chief brand officer. This job sees Sabesan lead on “
Colquhoun has plenty of experience in the food sector. She spent nine months as Wagamama’s top marketer, and prior to that worked for donut brand Krispy Kreme for nine years, first as its chief marketing and digital officer, before moving into a chief customer officer role. Before that she worked for the Ferrero Group, which owns confectionary brands including Kinder and Tic Tac.
Wingstop UK’s first CMO on scaling up, taking risks and ‘two-way respect’
Wingstop UK will be hoping that Colquhoun can harness her experience in food and retail to help it continue on its growth journey. As a chicken fast-food brand it faces significant competition in its category in the UK, but has made big strides. The chain, which arrived in the UK in 2018, now has around 80 stores, and was bought out last year by US investment firm Sixth Street.
Speaking to Marketing Week last year, then-CMO and now chief brand officer Dirujan Sabesan said the brand has a “massive opportunity” to grow. Wingstop has been particularly adept at tapping into youth culture, and Sabesan said that “never losing site of that audience” would be crucial going forward.
Before taking on the CMO role at Wingstop, Sabesan had already been working with the brand since 2018 as the founder of its agency partner, Creative Nerds. Since 2021, he also held the role of head of partnerships and social marketing at the brand on a contract basis.
Wagamama has appointed former Lidl, BP and Morrisons marketer, Claire Farrant, to take over from Colquhoun as CMO.
