Dominos Group CEO Don Meij's journey to the top started as a pizza delivery driver in 1987 in Redcliffe, Queensland.
Working for Silvio's Dial-a-Pizza (Silvio's) while studying to be a high school teacher, Mr Meij quickly fell in love with the business and has since slowly worked his way up the ranks.
His past positions include store manager, area manager, state operations manager and director of national operations. Then in 1993, Silvio's purchased Dominos in Australia and Mr Meij became the general manager of the Silvio's brand.
In 1996 he took the plunge and bought his first franchisee in Morayfield, Caboolture which went on to become the second-busiest store on the planet in its first year.
"Starting with one store, getting to 17 stores, using the equity in those stores to buy part of the company... Myself and another gentleman bought 25 percent of the company."
In 2001 Mr Meij rebranded to Dominos and became Chief Operating Officer before his move to Group CEO in 2002.
In May 2005, Mr Meij led Domino's to become Australia's first publicly-listed pizza chain on the ASX and in 2012 celebrated 25 years with the company.
"We entered New Zealand, which was 13 years ago yesterday, and we've become the market leader here and are just now celebrating our 100th store."
He says they are now on a mission to make pizza a little more diet friendly.
"We went down a program where we were removing the fat, and we measure that by what we called the stain of regret in the bottom of the pizza box. We've pretty much removed that from most of our pizzas."
"The number one reason you buy pizza is because it's indulgent; the number one reason you stop buying pizza is because it's indulgent."
They are also adding more colour to their food.
"Mums and young women - they're the decision-maker often in the home. Dad and kids want pizza, but mum's going to decide what pizza. So we introduced a lot of colour. We've been removing all of the preservatives in our food,"
"We call it 'indulgent health' because it's still got to be indulgent, it's still got to be something that I love... We're not looking for diet food, but can I have less guilt when I'm eating this amazing meal?"
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