By the time he was 6, UGA alum Andrew T. Cathy remembers standing atop an overturned pickle bucket, filleting chicken in a Chick-fil-A kitchen and handing out sample nuggets to mall customers.

But while Chick-fil-A has always been part of his life, it wasn’t clear he’d grow up to work in his family business, much less take on the responsibilities as the company’s CEO.

“My parents never put any pressure on me,” Cathy told a crowd of students gathered at the University of Georgia Chapel on Sept. 9. “They were always adamant that, ‘You have to do what you feel like your passions are and what you feel like God is calling you to do in your life.”

Cathy was at UGA as part of the Shoukry Leadership Speaker Series hosted by the UGA Institute for Leadership Advancement.

As the third generation of Cathys to lead Chick-fil-A, he discussed the value of finding your own path in life, the importance of caring for employees as whole people, and how Chick-fil-A’s core values are allowing the company to innovate and grow.

Cathy told students that as a young man, he wrestled with two passions and was unsure of where his path would take him.

On the one hand, he loved business. He was the kid on his block always selling something to friends and neighbors. As an undergraduate at UGA, he would sneak into MBA classes to learn about advanced finance topics. He day traded through college, when day trading online was still in its infancy. He still studies family businesses from the past.

On the other hand, he wanted to have a direct impact on the lives of others. He had a coach in middle school who helped him immensely, and he wanted to be that person for others.

“I was torn,” he said. “But I thought, ‘If I don’t teach or coach, I’ll always wonder if that was my calling.’”

After graduating from UGA, Cathy spent a few years teaching and coaching football and track before returning to Chick-fil-A. While it’s been more than two decades since his time in a classroom, being a teacher still informs his views on leadership and service.

“To get the very best out of somebody (as a coach), you’ve got to really get to know what drives and motivates them. With a different person over here, it could be a totally different thing.

“It’s the same thing with business … you also have to adapt as a leader and know each person well in order to get the best out of them. So, there is a lot from teaching and coaching that I still do every day in the work that I do now.”

Cathy has held several roles at Chick-fil-A over the past two decades, including owning and operating a restaurant, selecting franchise operators and leading  operations of more than 3,000 restaurants.

But he never thought he would lead Chick-fil-A; he just wanted a position where he could “plug into the business” and keep Chick-fil-A’s positive impact growing.

In 2020, when his father told him he was planning to step down and asked him to serve as CEO, he felt he wasn’t quite ready.

“I think that you never feel prepared for the biggest opportunities,” he told the students. “There’ll be opportunities that you’re not going to feel prepared for. But if you just dig in and learn from others, then you can grow into the role. I think it’s helpful for all of us to learn: We have to get comfortable being uncomfortable and learn how to grow into new roles.”

That counts for businesses, too.

Chick-fil-A has grown to include 3,200 restaurants across the U.S. with restaurants in Canada, England and Singapore. By every measure, the chain has had incredibly successful run since the first Chick-fil-A restaurant opened at the Greenbriar Mall in Atlanta in 1967, but there’s still room for innovation and growth, Cathy said.

“The danger for any business or organization — for any of us in terms of personal growth —  is that as you get down the road where you’ve had success, it can be dangerous. You can start creating this protectionist mindset, thinking, ‘This is what got us here, and we can’t change these things.’  

“For businesses — even those that have been at the very top of the game for years — it’s important that while they maintain their core values and purpose that they must evolve and change so they don’t miss the next big thing. It’s incumbent upon all of us that we are constantly growing and learning.”