Papa John’s (NASDAQ:PZZA) founder John Schnatter is no longer the Chairman of the Board at the company.
John Schnatter’s resignation as the Chairman of the Board at Papa John’s comes after his use of the “N” word during a conference call in May. During the call, Schnatter sought to mitigate the backlash from his previous NFL comments by saying that “Colonel Sanders called blacks n—–s” and never faced any public backlash at KFC.”
Despite the incident taking place in May, the controversy around the use of the N word only recently took off. Schnatter made more comments during the call to clarify that he finds racism wrong, but there were still listeners that were offended by his words.
“News reports attributing the use of inappropriate and hurtful language to me during a media training session regarding race are true,” Schnatter said in a statement obtained by CNBC. “Regardless of the context, I apologize. Simply stated, racism has no place in our society.”
With John Schnatter stepping down as the Chairman of the Board at Papa John’s, the company is searching for a permanent replacement. Until it finds one, Olivia Kirtley will be acting as its Lead Independent Director. The Board of Directors says that it will appoint a new Chairman of the Board within the coming weeks.
PZZA stock was up 12% on Thursday.
As of this writing, William White did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
