Who is Merrill Pereyra the new CEO of Domino’s Pizza Enterprises?

MUMBAI: If you ordered a pizza from Domino’s Australia this month, there’s a new captain steering the ship. Meet Merrill Pereyra, the freshly minted CEO for Australia and New Zealand, now responsible for over 880 stores across both nations.
So who exactly is this man trusted with Domino’s largest and most foundational markets?

Picture a fast food veteran who has spent three decades criss-crossing continents, fixing broken brands and building empires from scratch. That’s Pereyra in a nutshell.

His resume reads like a world tour of quick service restaurants. Most recently, he spent five years as managing director of Pizza Hut across India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and the Maldives. Before that, he ran the show at QSR Brands, commanding 1,200 Pizza Hut and KFC stores across Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia and Brunei with 30,000 staff.

But here’s where it gets interesting: Pereyra already knows Domino’s intimately. Between 2013 and 2016, he rescued the struggling Indonesian operation, growing it from 42 underperforming stores to 80 profitable outlets. He flipped store Ebitda from negative 2 per cent to positive 6 per cent, built a state-of-the-art commissary in seven months, and even orchestrated a merger with private equity firm Everstone Capital.

The Australia connection runs deeper still. From 2011 to 2013, Pereyra led Healthy Habits, Australia’s top sandwich bar chain, driving nationwide expansion.

Yet the bedrock of his expertise comes from 23 years with McDonald’s. Starting as a trainee manager in Australia, he climbed to regional manager for South East Asia, opening restaurants in Saudi Arabia and conducting feasibility studies across Pacific islands. He literally wrote the book on brand expansion, authoring “Expand Your Brand: How to Supersize Any Brand, Anywhere in the World.”

His academic credentials are equally impressive: executive programmes at Wharton, Harvard Business School, Insead and Thunderbird School of Global Management.

What drives him? Pereyra describes his leadership as grounded in “humility, clarity and purpose,” with people at the centre. He emphasises supporting franchise partners, developing leaders and fostering cultures built on safety, trust and continuous improvement.

For Domino’s, the choice is clear. They’ve picked a proven turnaround specialist who understands franchise operations, knows how to scale profitably, and has already delivered results for the brand once before. In a fiercely competitive Australian pizza market, Merrill Pereyra might just be the secret ingredient Domino’s has been looking for.