Interview with Atif Rafiq, President, Board Member, Author

April 25, 2023

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Today I am joined by Atif Rafiq who has blazed trails in Silicon Valley and the Fortune 500 for over 25 years. After rising through digital native companies like Amazon, Yahoo!, and AOL, Atif held C-suite roles at McDonald’s, Volvo, and MGM Resorts. He oversaw thousands of employees as a global P&L, transformation, and innovation leader. Rafiq was the first Chief Digital Officer in the history of the Fortune 500, a pioneering role he held at McDonalds, and he rose to the president level in the Fortune 300.

He currently sits on the Boards of Flutter / Fanduel ($25bn public company); Clearcover (a fintech provider, ranked on the Fast 500); and KINS Capital ($300mm SPAC). Previously, he’s served on the client council for Snapchat (SNAP), as advisor to Slack (acquired by Salesforce for $20bn) and national board member of Defy Ventures (non-profit serving the formerly incarcerated).

Atif was most recently President of Commercial & Growth at MGM Resorts, a Fortune 300 company, where he oversaw a significant portfolio of corporate functions (marketing, sales, revenue management, direct marketing, call centers, business & corporate development, digital products, analytics, IT, information security). In this role, Atif lead a team of C-level executives, SVP’s and corporate vice presidents to direct the company’s growth strategy including its P&L, business model, customer experience and new offerings.

Prior to MGM Resorts, he was the Chief Digital Officer and Global CIO for Volvo, the Global 250 company with over $35bn in sales. He joined the company in January 2017 to catalyze business model and product innovation. His efforts included developing a disruptive subscription business model and introducing new features for connected cars. He lead an organization of over 1,500 people across the globe involved with digital innovation, e-commerce, retail systems, connected cars, iOT, mobile, retail systems, CRM, big data, AI, manufacturing, and all enterprise applications (supply chain, manufacturing, logistics). He also steered the company’s Silicon Valley presence, consisting of its venture capital fund and advanced R&D / engineering teams.

Previously he served as chief digital officer and Corporate SVP of McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) from 2013 to 2017, where he worked for the CEO and lead one of the largest digital transformations in the world. Atif was the youngest person in the company’s history to sit on their exec committee. He built the digital strategy, organization, and lead the day to day execution to bring it to life. In four years, the company went from idea to global rollout of initiatives such as mobile ordering, digital delivery, curbside pickup, table service and ordering, digital menu boards, personalized offers, and kiosk based self-service ordering. These initiatives define the McDonald’s “store of the future” and are rolling out in all major geographies and have added billions of incremental revenue in their first four years.