Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze And Smokey Bones' Top Executive Is A Brother From The Hood
Clarence Otis Jr. is the CEO of Darden Restaurants Inc., the largest casual dining operator in the nation. The firm operates nearly 1,400 company-owned restaurants coast to coast serving 300 million meals annually. Darden employs 150,000 workers and has
annual revenues of $6 billion.
SAY WHAT?!?!
Born in Mississippi , Otis moved to Southern California when he was 6 years old. His father was a high school dropout who worked as a janitor. The family lived in Watts at the time of the 1965 riots. In the post-Watts period, Otis remembers being stopped and questioned by police several times a year because he was DWB (Driving While Black).
A high school guidance counselor recommended him for a scholarship at Williams College, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and went on to earn a law degree at Stanford. Otis landed on Wall Street as a merger and acquisitions attorney for J.P. Morgan Securities.
He joined Darden Restaurants in 1995 as corporate treasurer. He became CEO in 2004. Today, Otis is one of only six African Americans currently running a Fortune 500 company.
Those numbers are pretty dismal family, but at least we have men like Clarence Otis representing.