Roger McClendon is the Executive Director of the Green Sports Alliance. In his role, he leads the Alliance of international sports and stadium executives, as well as sustainability experts, to use sports as a vehicle to promote healthy, sustainability communities throughout the world
McClendon is a results-driven executive with deep global experience in the development and deployment of engineering innovation and sustainability/supply-chain management strategies for domestic and international operations.
Prior to this role, he was the first-ever Chief Sustainability Officer for Yum! Brands, Inc. Roger created corporate social responsibility strategies, global environmental policies and restaurant sustainability development standards and implemented them company-wide, making the company the second largest developer of green restaurants in the world. He ensured all brand restaurants operated efficiently and minimized environmental impact through innovation, helping the company be named to the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index and among the Top 100 Best Corporate Citizens by Corporate Responsibility Magazine (2017). Earlier at Yum!, Roger was Senior Director YUM Global Engineering and Facilities, Restaurant Excellence for Yum Restaurants Global – A&W, KFC, Long John Silvers, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, responsible for developing the standards, strategies and tactics to ensure global quality standards, engineering standards and operational standards.
Roger has held a number of roles and board positions, including positions with the University of Louisville Speed School of Engineering, Kentucky Center for African American Heritage, Habitat for Humanity, Louisville Sports Commission, Kentucky Minority Business Council, and McClendon Institute for Learning Community Outreach Programs.
Roger’s other passion is basketball. He was a McDonald’s All-American in 1984, one of the top 25 high school basketball players in the nation and went on to be a four-year starter who closed his University of Cincinnati men’s basketball career as the No. 2 scorer, second only to Oscar Robertson at the time. He was inducted into the UC Athletics Hall of Fame in 1998.
