McDonald’s Corp.’s Chief Financial Officer Matthew Paull told analysts on Tuesday that he plans to leave the company after 14 years in order to go into teaching. The move will happen after McDonald’s finds his replacement.

In an interview with Reuters, Paull shared his thoughts about teaching and about the company.
 
“I do have what I would call an informal arrangement with a school out near San Diego… And it would be teaching international business and finance kinds of issues.” 

 On why he is leaving: 
“It’s important to me that people understand that I love this company and this job and people leave companies for all kinds of reasons, and for me it is all about, I’ve made enough money to be able to do what I’ve always wanted to do. And I taught for three or four years early in my career and I really loved it. But I couldn’t support the lifestyle I wanted on a teacher’s salary.”
 
On how teaching affected his McDonald’s career:
“It has helped a lot in what I do at McDonald’s … because very often when we’re describing a fairly sophisticated financial transaction to people who might not deal with it every day, it helps to know how to break it down to small, teachable pieces.” 
 
On whether he had ever wanted to be McDonald’s CEO:
“I believe strongly that this company needs to be run by somebody, who, if they’re not an operations person, at least thinks like an operating person. The company is about operating excellence and leadership marketing. I mean, you take somebody who thinks too much like a finance person and you put them in the CEO’s job, the company will never realize its promise.

“Some finance people, I’m not one of them, can make that transition from being somebody who thinks like a finance person to somebody who thinks like a brand/operating person. (Former McDonald’s CEO) Jim Cantalupo was a great example of a finance person who made the transition, but for the most part, this particular company should be led by somebody with an operations mindset.”