Charlie Bell likes results--now! The McDonald's president and COO won't wait for outdated weekly, much less quarterly, sales reports. Every day he checks sales totals in all 118 countries with McDonald's franchises. "I'm a results guy," says Bell, 43. "I like knowing." The Australian-born Bell joined the company's new management team when James Cantalupo became CEO early this year. That means Bell is in line to eventually become the first non-American to head the iconic U.S. company.
Bell isn't the long-shot candidate he might seem. Growing up in a blue-collar Sydney suburb, he helped out his father's travel business by...