‘I was 16, managing the person training me’: Pret A Manger's CEO started his career with this popular fast food chain

Pano Christou believes that his big break came due to him to saying yes to all the opportunities that came his way

Pano Christou, the CEO of Pret A Manger, one of Britain’s biggest coffee and sandwich chains, earned $5 million in 2024. However, he started his career at the age of 16 on the shop floor of a popular American multinational fast food chain - McDonald's.

Pret A Manger CEO Pano Christou said that his journey started when he got an opportunity to take a test to become a supervisor at McDonald's. (Representational Image/Pixabay)

“My parents didn’t have lots of lots of money," he told in an interview with Fortune. "But what they did have was a phenomenal work ethic.”

Christou's half-Greek and half-Italian father was a cab driver while his Greek-Cypriot mother was a nurse.

He said that his journey started when he got an opportunity to take a test to become a supervisor at McDonald's.

“Somebody was meant to go on a course to become a shift supervisor. For some reason, they were fired,” he said.

However, Christou managed to clear the test to become a supervisor at McDonald's, to his and his manager's surprise.

“I was 16 and all of a sudden I was managing the person that was training me two or three months ago, who was close to 30,” the report quoted him as saying.

Christou believes that his big break came due to him to saying yes to all the opportunities that came his way, which is also how he joined Pret A Manger where he has worked for over 20 years.

“I just thought: this looks like a fun environment to work in—so I joined them at 22,” he said. “The rest is history.”

Christou said that he has "watched people that have been so fixated on the next role that they really take their eye off the current job they’re doing.”

He added that his "philosophy has always been if you do a great job, people will notice you.”