Joel Aaseby

Joel Aaseby, Chief Financial Officer
Joel Aaseby is the Chief Financial Officer of Heartland Food Corp and its related entities. Mr. Aaseby is a seasoned financial professional with over 35 years of experience in restaurant retail, business development and wholesale distribution.

Mr. Aaseby’s career in restaurants started at the age of 16 as an hourly employee in a Burger King restaurant owned by Chart House, Inc. He quickly advanced to a restaurant management position where he remained while completing his college education. After graduating in 1981, Mr. Aaseby took a position as an internal auditor for Chart House which at the time was the largest Burger King franchisee with over 200 locations.

In 1984 Mr. Aaseby transferred to the parent company, DiversiFoods, Inc. as the Corporate Accounting Manager. The company was subsequently acquired by the Pillsbury Company, owner of Burger King Corporation at the time. He transferred back to Burger King and continued to advance and in 1989 was promoted to the position of Sector Controller for Burger King Corporation. During this time, he had financial responsibility for a business unit with annual revenues in excess of $350 million covering the entire Midwest. He was actively involved in the decision making process for brand expansion and led a finance team that provided capital investment analysis and financial support and analysis for the marketing and promotional efforts in the sector.

In 1994 Mr. Aaseby left Burger King Corporation and took the position of Chief Financial Officer in a new start-up, AmeriKing, Inc. AmeriKing grew to become the largest Burger King franchisee in the world with 380 restaurants located in 11 states and total revenues in excess of $400 million. While at AmeriKing Mr. Aaseby lead the team that successfully completed 13 acquisitions and raised in excess of $300 million to fund the growth of the company.

In March of 2001, Mr. Aaseby left AmeriKing to help form Glazed Investments, LLC. Glazed Investments was a joint venture with Krispy Kreme Dougnut Company and held exclusive development rights to the Krispy Kreme brand in the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Colorado. Mr. Aaseby assumed the position of Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Administration and was instrumental in providing leadership and direction on the path to becoming one of Krispy Kreme’s largest area developers with 20 retail factory stores servicing in excess of 1450 wholesale accounts on a daily basis. Mr. Aaseby has successfully raised in excess of $35 million to fund the growth of Glazed Investments including a $22 million sale-leaseback transaction for 8 locations.

In June of 2006, Mr. Aaseby returned to the Burger King system and assumed his current position as Chief Financial Officer at Heartland Food Corp. Mr. Aaseby was instrumental in the completion of the sale of Heartland in December 2006 to its current owners. Mr. Aaseby leads a team at Heartland responsible for business development, accounting, finance, Information technology and real estate asset management.

Mr. Aaseby is a graduate of the University of Illinois with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting and a minor in Computer Science. He is a registered CPA in the State of Illinois. Mr. Aaseby is currently serving on the Board of Directors for the Three Fires Council, Boy Scouts of America. The council serves over 35,000 youth in the counties west of Chicago.