Around the world.
One engine.
Margrit Waltz, the most famous TBM pilot on the planet, and I are flying my TBM 980 all the way around the world, trading legs in the left seat. A camera crew comes with us. Every leg filmed, every leg streamed live.
Out in the world.
For the last two decades I’ve been saying the same thing to anyone who would listen: people do their best work when somebody believes in them. I said it at Chipotle, one manager at a time, and I’ve been saying it ever since, on stages, on the radio and in a couple of books. A lot of it is collected here, along with the companies I try to help and the causes that matter to me.
Bios are boring.
If you want to know more about me, watch a couple of these instead.
Washington Speakers Bureau · Connected Play1:41 Making Chipotle better, then making Connected
How Chipotle got better when we started taking care of the people who ran it, and why I got in an airplane to go find out what still holds Americans together.
10:44What most leaders get wrong about communication
MMindvalley
1:06:35Building a $35 billion company through vulnerability and authenticity
MMindvalley Talks
41:33Leadership secrets from the former Chipotle president
DDigital Social Hour
58:12Live on stage at the NBAA Leadership Conference
TThe Learning Leader Show
5:54Building unity, one conversation at a time
FFOX 7 Austin
40:14The power of love at work
VVishen Lakhiani
46:24Coffee with Jim: a conversation with the president of Pepperdine
PPepperdine University
56:48Love is free, guac is extra: an hour with the former Chipotle CEO
IIndependence Institute TVI love a good conversation.
These are a few I was lucky to have. The hosts asked great questions, and I learned something in every one. Start anywhere.
How the former co-CEO of Chipotle defines success
Srinivas Rao asked me a question nobody at Chipotle ever did: what does success actually feel like? If you only have time for one, make it this one.
Growing Chipotle into a $23 billion company
Live at the NBAA Leadership Conference
The power of love at work
Being the CEO of Chipotle
Leadership secrets from the former Chipotle president
Moving up within a company
Leadership skills and employee engagement
Talking No One Is a Stranger on the radio
Two weeks with me, on your own schedule.
I’d rather do this in person, but a camera lets me do it with more people. Two weeks, a lesson a day, and everything I’ve learned about leading people.
Mindvalley QuestWatch the official trailer The Transformational Leader
Fourteen short lessons, one a day. How to build a presence people trust, say what you actually mean, and stop managing people so you can start leading them.
Montyin print.
Two decades of telling anyone who would print it that people do their best work when somebody believes in them. The Journal, CNBC, and every trade paper the restaurant business reads.
Photograph · Old Tale Productionsstory
QSR Magazine · March 27, 2025
Back in the restaurant business, this time in the boardroom.
Sweetgreen nominates former Chipotle co-CEO Monty Moran to its board of directors.
Sweetgreen announced the nomination of Monty Moran and Dawn Ostroff to its board, citing Moran’s record of scaling businesses and building leadership cultures as the former co-CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill, and his decade as CEO of the Denver law firm Messner and Reeves.
An entrepreneur, author, speaker and filmmaker, the company said, whose focus on leadership, culture and human connection lines up with Sweetgreen’s mission. Moran helped take Chipotle from a regional brand to a national one known for a people-first culture, and now brings that to a second publicly traded restaurant company.
Land, and a fair day in court.
I care deeply about the land, the animals, and the people who take care of both. We’re lucky to be here at all, and I want to help keep this world beautiful for everyone who comes after us, any way I can. I also believe in truth and justice, and that every person, wherever they were born, deserves both. Those are ideals worth spending a life on.
I’ve spent as much of my life outside as I could get away with, and I’ve never once regretted it. The Nature Conservancy protects the land, the water and the wildlife I love, and I’m glad to help them do it.
nature.org Volunteer · Africa Pepperdine Sudreau Global Justice InstituteI was a trial lawyer before I was anything else. Countries like Uganda had no plea bargaining, so people sat in prison for years waiting on trials the courts couldn’t get to. At the invitation of their judges, Pepperdine’s global justice team helps build it into their systems, one prison and one case at a time. I’ve gone along as a volunteer lawyer. They do the real work, and I help where I can.
law.pepperdine.edu/global-justiceWhere I try to be useful.
A few companies that let me help, a couple I started, and two old hotels in Leadville, Colorado, two miles up.
A few true things about me.
I’ve sat down one-on-one with more than 20,000 people, first as a trial lawyer taking depositions, then with crew members and managers at Chipotle. It taught me that you don’t know somebody until you ask. So here’s a little about me, in case you’re curious.
Boulder, Colorado, with a good share of the year in San Diego and New Hampshire.
Three kids and two dogs, Charlie and Chelsea. The dogs get most of the airtime.
A trial lawyer, then CEO and managing partner of Messner & Reeves. Chipotle was a client first, then a calling.
75,000 people worked at Chipotle. I tried to sit down with as many of them as I could.
Pilot, surfer, golfer. I’m happiest outside and moving.
Two books, a docuseries, a few boards, and more time in rooms full of people than I ever expected.
“No one is a stranger. Some people you just haven’t met yet.”
Want me to speak? Want me on your show?
Speaking goes through Washington Speakers Bureau. Everything else goes through David, who runs my life better than I do.
Book me to speak.
Keynotes, fireside chats and workshops for conferences, annual meetings, franchise conventions and leadership offsites. Washington Speakers Bureau represents me and can walk you through dates, fees and formats.
Everything else.
Podcasts, interviews, book signings, screenings of Connected, board and advisory conversations, or something I haven’t thought of. Talk to David Chrisman, my Director of Operations. He handles all of it and he’ll get right back to you.
Everything a producer asks for, in one place.
Bios and photos you’re welcome to use. Copy the text, download the files, no need to ask.
Monty Moran is the former co-CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill. Prior to joining Chipotle, he was head of litigation and then managing partner and CEO at the Denver-based law firm of Messner and Reeves, LLC, which he led for ten years. Before that, after graduating cum laude from Pepperdine University School of Law, Monty was a trial lawyer at Morris, Polich and Purdy in Los Angeles. Recently, Monty realized his lifelong dream of becoming a pilot, flying his airplane throughout North America to pursue his interest in better understanding and serving Americans, a quest he documented through his docuseries CONNECTED: A Search for Unity. He is a keynote speaker with the Washington Speakers Bureau, director and chairman of corporate boards, advisor to many executives, entrepreneurs and businesses, television personality and filmmaker, and author of two books: Love Is Free. Guac Is Extra. and No One Is a Stranger. An avid athlete and father of three, Monty lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Monty Moran is a person who has a heart that is available and open. He is vulnerable and loving, and delights when those around him are at their best. He doesn’t want to be known for his accomplishments, but does want to be known as someone who loves this world, and the people and animals, plants, and environment that make it so rich and special. He does not think his résumé is what’s important, but has still allowed us to put some of it here for the curious.
Monty is the former co-CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill. Prior to joining Chipotle, he was head of litigation and then managing partner and CEO at the Denver-based law firm Messner and Reeves, LLC, which he led for ten years. In 2020 he published his first book, Love Is Free. Guac Is Extra.: How Vulnerability, Empowerment, and Curiosity Built an Unstoppable Team, followed in 2023 by No One Is a Stranger: Finding Love, Connection, and a Brilliant Life. Several years ago, Monty realized his lifelong dream of becoming a pilot. Today he flies his airplane throughout the United States to pursue his interest in better understanding and serving Americans, a quest he documents through his company, Old Tale Productions, and through his documentary series on PBS, CONNECTED: A Search for Unity. He is a keynote speaker with the Washington Speakers Bureau, a director and chairman of corporate boards, and an advisor to many entrepreneurs and businesses. A father of three, Monty lives in Boulder, Colorado.