[7] On 1 March 2015, after being chief brand officer of McDonald's and its former head in the UK and northern Europe, he became the CEO of the company, succeeding Don Thompson, who stepped down on 28 January 2015.

[10] In November 2019, McDonald's board of directors voted to remove Easterbrook as CEO since he had violated corporate policies on personal conduct by entering into a relationship with a company employee.

[12] In August 2020, McDonald's filed suit against Easterbrook, accusing him of lying about the number and extent of his relationships with subordinate employees and seeking to recover his severance package of more than $40 million.

The company claimed that Easterbrook had sexual relationships with three women in the year before he was fired and awarded one of these employees stock options worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[14] In 2023, Easterbrook agreed to SEC imposed punishments around the disclosure of his McDonald's departure, to include a $400,000 fine, and being ineligible to serve as a director or executive for any public company for a period of five years.