Biography | Brian Niccol — The First of January He Took Taco Bell on Glen Bell Way

The title change at Taco Bell was an Irvine succession date, not a startup story. On 21 May 2014 Taco Bell Corp., a Yum! Brands division, announced that president Brian Niccol would become chief executive on 1 January 2015. Greg Creed, then Taco Bell's chief, was moving the same day to become chief executive of Yum!. Restaurant-trade reprints of the Irvine release give those dates and the chain's then-current count of about 7,000 restaurants. Niccol had joined Taco Bell in 2011 as chief marketing and innovation officer. He served as president of Taco Bell U.S. from 2013. The Chipotle 8-K that later hired him repeats the same Taco Bell ladder. This five-story building at 1 Glen Bell Way, in the Irvine Spectrum beside Interstate 5, was already the headquarters. Orange County Business Journal later recorded that Taco Bell moved into the building in 2010 from 17901 Von Karman Avenue near John Wayne Airport. The street name honors founder Glen Bell. On 20 November 2015, eleven months into Niccol's tenure, the original 1962 Downey restaurant building arrived here on a trailer. It has since sat on the campus parking lot as Numero Uno. The 2012 photograph attached shows this Spectrum headquarters, with 1 Glen Bell Way on the glass over the door. Photo: Coolcaesar, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Portrait: Phi Delta Theta, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.