Andrew Puzder is the former chief executive of CKE Restaurants, where he helped turn Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. into fast food powerhouses. Starting as founder Carl Karcher’s personal attorney in 1986, Puzder became CEO in 2000 and led the company out of serious financial difficulties. Under his leadership, CKE expanded to over 3,800 restaurants globally.
Puzder is a frequent lecturer on economics and politics for various groups and associations as well as at colleges and universities. He is , a Distinguished Fellow, Business and Economic Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, Senior Fellow at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy a Senior Fellow at the America First Policy Institute, and a “Reaganomics Lecturer” and member of the Reagan Institute’s National Leadership Council. He is also on the Washington University Law School’s Board of Advisors, the State Financial Officers Foundation’s National Advisory Committee, the Board of Advisors for Young America’s Foundation’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Free Enterprise, and the Advisory Board at Prager University.
In 2010, he co-authored the book titled Job Creation: How It Really Works and Why Government Doesn’t Understand It. His second book, The Capitalist Comeback: The Trump Boom and the Left's Plot to Stop It, came out in April 2018. His third book A Tyranny for the Good of its Victims – The Ugly Truth About Stakeholder Capitalism is due out in late 2024.
