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SPEAKER

Andrew F. Puzder

Former CEO, CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc.

EconomicsFree Markets

SPEAKER

Andrew F. Puzder

Former CEO, CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc.

Andrew F. Puzder is a speaker, political commentator, attorney, and retired chief executive officer. For 17 years he served as the CEO of CKE Restaurants, Inc., an international corporation which owns popular restaurant chains Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s.

Mr. Puzder is a sought-after commentator on economic and political issues in national publications including the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Fox News Online, and Real Clear Politics. He has also been a regular guest on Fox News, Fox Business, Newsmax, and CNBC. Mr. Puzder has recorded six PragerU videos on economic issues, each of which has garnered millions of views.

Mr. Puzder currently serves on the Board of Advisors for Young America’s Foundation’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Free Enterprise, and he is a frequent lecturer and author for the organization on economics, business, and public policy. The titles of his lectures include: “Why Millennials Should Embrace Capitalism and Reject Socialism”; “The Moral Case For Capitalism”; “The Threat of ‘Woke’ Capitalism”; and “Why ESG Is Socialism In Sheep’s Clothing.” In 2023, he spoke at a Hillsdale College event on “The Biden Economy And How It Could Be Fixed.”

Mr. Puzder’s lectures focus generally on the material and moral benefits of free market capitalism. He compellingly and in clear terms contrasts the broad-based prosperity and abundance of capitalism with the poverty and want of socialism. As Mr. Puzder likes to say, he was 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.

Additionally, Mr. Puzder is a “Reaganomics Lecturer” and member of the Reagan Institute’s National Leadership Council. He is a Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy, and America First Policy Institute. He also serves on the Advisory Boards of PragerU, the State Financial Officers Foundation, and Washington University’s School of Law.

He has written two books. The first is titled Job Creation – How It really Works and Why Government Doesn’t Understand It. The second is titled The Capitalist Comeback: The Trump Boom – And The Left’s Plot to Stop It.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Puzder was a commercial trial lawyer in St. Louis. He authored legislation in Missouri—acknowledging that life begins at conception and granting unborn children rights in contexts other than abortion (such as criminal, tort, and inheritance laws)—which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services in 1989.

Mr. Puzder and his wife, Dee, reside in Brentwood, Tennessee, and spend the summers in Suttons Bay, Michigan.

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Reagan Ranch

Reagan Boyhood Home

Campus Lectures & Activism

Defending Student Rights

Middle School Programs

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All Media

Articles

Videos

The New Guard

About

About Us

Staff Members

Our Boards

Careers

Financials