From courtroom to boardroom: 4 questions with attorney, business leader Andy Puzder

By Bryana Archer ’26 
Business administration major 
Center for Economic Freedom assistant 

Andy Puzder has held many titles in his life: attorney, chief executive, author, commentator and more. He likes to describe himself as “just a working-class kid from Cleveland, Ohio, who now considers it his responsibility to ensure that young Americans understand the incredible benefits of the economic system in which they live.” 

To that end, he serves on the board of advisors for the Center of Entrepreneurship & Free Enterprise with the Young America’s Foundation. He’s also a “Reaganomics Lecturer” with the Reagan Institute’s National Leadership Council; a distinguished fellow with the Heritage Foundation and a senior fellow at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy; and an advisory board member for Washington University’s School of Law. 

He started his career as a commercial trial lawyer in St. Louis before making an unexpected transition to CEO of CKE Restaurants Inc., an international corporation that owns the popular restaurant chains Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s. 

On Nov. 20, he spoke at Roanoke College in a lecture sponsored by the David L. Guy '75 Lecture Series, the Center for Economic Freedom and the Young America's Foundation. Ahead of that event, I had an opportunity to interview him about his career and his advice for today’s students. 

Editor’s Note: This interview took place on Oct. 14. Edited excerpts of the conversation follow below. 

Q: What inspired you to make the leap from the courtroom to the boardroom? What advice do you have for college students trying to map out their career paths? 

My advice is to decide on something you love, then do the best you can at it, and opportunities will present themselves. Take advantage of those opportunities. 

I thought I’d be a lawyer trying civil lawsuits my entire life, but I eventually transitioned to representing people who needed legal advice on a more consistent basis, including Carl N. Karcher, the founder of the Carl's Jr. restaurant chain. Carl had some serious financial problems that I helped him resolve by putting together a deal with another client of mine, Bill Foley, the CEO of Fidelity National Financial. Inc. Bill would later insist that I become general counsel at Fidelity. I didn’t really want to do it in the beginning, but it ended up being one of the best moves. I later became general counsel and executive vice president at both Fidelity and CKE Restaurants, where Bill had become chairman of the board.  

When CKE bought Hardees, there was an effort to transform it into Carl’s Jr. Now, I grew up in the Midwest and knew Hardee's well. No one else involved in that decision had. They had been out in California. I said I didn’t think it would work because no one would know Carl’s Jr. in the East and would wonder what had happened to Hardee's. 

After a few years, it actually didn’t work. At the shareholders meeting in 2000, Bill Foley called me over and said, Andy, you’re going to be the CEO and president of Hardee’s. And I said, excuse me? But he said you were the only guy who knew this wouldn’t work. I decided, what the heck, let’s see if I can fix it. Who knew that 17 years later, when I retired, the company would be a successful, 4,000-unit, international chain.    

Q: You are a sought-after commentator on economic and political issues. What got you into talking about political and economic issues on national channels? 

At first, I was going on TV a lot for business reasons. CKE Restaurants was a publicly traded company, and I would talk about what commercials we were coming out with — we had some very popular commercials in the 2000s — and what products. 

I used to go on business shows; not a lot of political shows. Then once, I was on the Neil Cavuto Show and in a commercial break we started talking about politics. This was when Obama was president, and I was not very happy with how he was managing the economy. Neil said, would you be willing to say any of that on screen? I said, yeah, sure, I think what I’m saying is true.  

We went on and afterwards he said it was great because they can’t get CEOs to talk about these issues. They’re afraid of offending people on one side of the aisle or the other. But these are important issues that people need to understand the business perspectives on and they often don’t, because businesspeople won’t speak up. When people found out I was willing to speak up, I became very popular.  

I still do it out of my concern about the issues and my desire for people to get the business side. I want to be a voice for free enterprise, opportunity and prosperity — the things that make a great country.  

Q: You serve on the advisory board for the Center for Entrepreneurship & Free Enterprise with the Young America’s Foundation. YAF sponsors these talks. What is your favorite part about working for the organization? 

I think it’s so important to go out and give students today a realistic and honest perspective on the importance of free-market capitalism — what it means for opportunity and prosperity, how it’s lifted the world from a place where, in 1820, 80-90% of people lived in extreme poverty to a place where we now have extreme poverty down to the single digits.  

I don’t think people understand what incredible opportunity they have in this country. You can be a guy like JD Vance, who grew up impoverished in Ohio and facing real problems in his family with drug addiction, who went on to a great college and law school, served in the military and now could potentially be vice president of the United States. [Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted Oct. 14 prior to the election.] 

You can go from zero to hero in this country based on your efforts and capabilities. I was a working-class kid in Cleveland, Ohio. My parents did not have money to send me to college or law school. I had to work to do that, and I was able to. No one stopped me. No one told me you can’t do that. I had the opportunity.  

I think this is a wonderful country, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that everyone was created equal. I think it’s important that kids know that and what it means in real life, not just in a textbook.  

Q: You were Donald Trump’s original pick for Secretary of Labor in 2016. What was something you hoped to do in that position? How did you navigate the scrutiny of being on the national stage? Do you have advice for students on how to maintain grace under pressure? 

One of the things I hoped to do was to fight back against ESG, or Environmental, Social, and Governance investing, which is something I talk about. There is an effort to attack our democratic form of government, our economic system and our individual liberty by compelling businesses to enact social and cultural policy without legislation, without a vote of the people, without consumers demanding that companies make these kinds of changes. I think that’s having a very negative impact on our economy.  

As far as being on the national stage, I had been a trial lawyer. I had been on TV. I was used to public speaking. What was unusual was the environment in D.C. I was accused of things that simply never happened.  

I think the only way to deal with that is to know your values and know the truth about yourself. If you know you’re right and you have confidence in yourself, what other people say doesn’t change you. It’s much like what we’re seeing in social media today. I get attacked on social media all the time, but I just don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me what they say. I know who I am, I know what I’ve done in my life, and I know what I believe in.  

I think people need to do what’s right and not let what other people say worry them. That’s how you deal with these issues with dignity and respect. Don’t attack the other side. Just explain your position, go forward and be a respectable, decent human being.