How this CEO went from working at McDonald's at 16 to earning Rs 43 crore in 2024

Elaborating on how he rose through the ranks, Pano Christou said it all started when he got an opportunity to take a test to become a supervisor at the fast food chain. (File photo)

Pano Christou didn't grow up with "lots of lots of money". When he was 16, he started working the shop floor at McDonald’s, but now, at 45, the CEO of one of Britain’s biggest sandwich chains, Pret A Manger, earns millions. He earned $5 million (Rs 43 crore) in 2024.

“My parents didn’t have lots of lots of money. But what they did have was a phenomenal work ethic,” he told Fortune. His half-Greek, half-Italian father was a cab driver and his Greek-Cypriot mother was a nurse. “I knew the more I worked, the more money I could make,” he told the publication.

Elaborating on how he rose through the ranks, Christou said it all started when he got an opportunity to take a test to become a supervisor at the fast food chain.  “Somebody was meant to go on a course to become a shift supervisor. For some reason, they were fired,” he said. Christou said that much to his and his manager's surprise, he cleared the test to become a supervisor at McDonald's.

“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,” he told Fortune.

For Christou, his big break all came down to saying yes to any opportunity that came his way.

That's also how he joined Pret—a company he has worked with for more than 20 years.

“I just thought: this looks like a fun environment to work in—so I joined them at 22,” he says. “The rest is history.” Christou is now at the top of the fast food chain’s ladder.

He said looking forward with his feet firmly on the ground set him up for success.

“I’ve watched people that have been so fixated on the next role that they really take their eye off the current job they’re doing,” Christou told the publication. “My philosophy has always been if you do a great job, people will notice you.”