Nils H. Okeson
General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer
Nils H. Okeson serves as General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer of Inspire Brands, a multi-brand restaurant company whose portfolio includes more than 33,000 Arby’s, Baskin-Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunkin’, Jimmy John’s, and SONIC restaurants worldwide. Inspire is supported by about 650,000 company and franchise team members.
Okeson oversees the legal, corporate secretary, risk management, lease management, and administrative services functions for Inspire and its brands.
Prior to Inspire, Okeson was General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer of Arby’s Restaurant Group, Inc.
Okeson joined Arby’s as General Counsel in 2005 and became General Counsel of Arby’s former parent corporation, Triarc Companies in 2007. In these roles, he helped lead the organization through a number of significant M&A and financing transactions as Triarc evolved into a pure play restaurant company eventually combining with Wendy’s International, Inc. to form Wendy’s/Arby’s Group in 2008. At Wendy’s/Arby’s Group, Okeson served as General Counsel of the parent company and each of the Arby’s and Wendy’s operating companies. Following Roark Capital Group’s acquisition of Arby’s in 2011, Okeson remained with Arby’s as General Counsel while assuming additional senior management responsibilities.
Previously, Okeson was a partner at Alston & Bird LLP in Atlanta, Georgia, where he spent 15 years specializing in corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, securities regulation, and corporate finance. While at Alston & Bird, Okeson co-chaired the firm’s securities and corporate governance practice quality teams.
He was listed in Chambers USA America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, The Best Lawyers in America, and Georgia Super Lawyers. Okeson is a past member of the Advisory Board of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. In 2005, he was named a Georgia Rising Star in Atlanta magazine and Georgia Super Lawyers – Rising Stars Edition. Okeson was named Outstanding General Counsel in 2015 and Dealmaker of the Year in 2019 by the Atlanta Business Chronicle and the Georgia chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel.
Okeson is an alumnus of the University of Virginia where he received a Bachelor of Arts, with distinction, majoring in economics and minoring in mathematics. He also received a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law.
