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Qdoba Announces Series of Promotions

Qdoba Mexican Grill promoted a pair in its restaurant operations department and an other in the area of franchise development.

Denver-based Qdoba Mexican Grill, a franchised fast-casual Mexican concept, promoted several executives from its management team, including Neil Harfert, division vice president – restaurant operations; Jim Piper, division vice president – restaurant operations; and John Dikos, director of franchise development.

Harfert joined Qdoba in September 1998 as a restaurant general manager and training manager. Harfert then served as director of human resources and training before becoming the regional director of operations for restaurants in Seattle and building 18 locations in the market. In 2005, he added St. Louis and Minneapolis to his group, and in 2008, became responsible for restaurants in Colorado and helped integrate and consolidate three California Qdoba franchise groups under the company's corporate management. Harfert relocated to Denver in September 2009 and recently added Cincinnati restaurants under his area of responsibility. Harfert currently is responsible for approximately 85 Qdoba company restaurants

Piper joined Qdoba in March 1999 as a regional manager of corporate restaurants in Texas. He was promoted to a director and charged with establishing new corporate restaurants in St. Louis and Chicago. Piper then became a franchise business consultant and eventually returned to company operations. Piper relocated to Chicago as the regional director of Midwest operations to manage the acquisition of two Michigan franchisees in addition to managing the operations of corporate restaurants in Chicago, St. Louis and Minneapolis. He is responsible for more than 100 Qdoba company restaurants.

Dikos joined Qdoba in January 2007 as a member of the franchise finance and development team. Since then, Dikos has added more than 170 new restaurants through new development agreements with seasoned restaurateurs, in addition to helping existing franchisees continue to grow and add to their development commitments. Dikos previously worked in commercial banking at National Cooperative Bank in Washington, DC, where he managed franchise finance for 10 brands, including Qdoba.

Also promoted was Karen Guido to chief marketing officer and David Craven to division vice president – marketing.