Angela Clervoix didn’t grow up expecting to run a McDonald’s empire. She didn’t map out a succession plan or imagine overseeing airport store operations, community partnerships, and a multistore organization. But when her parents needed her, she stepped in. She didn’t have a strategy, only a sense of duty.
“When it’s a family business, it is personal,” she said.
Her father, Wayne Stingley, was one of the first Black McDonald’s owner‑operators in the country, entering the system in 1982, when opportunities for African American franchisees were beginning to open.
Clervoix’s mother, Dorothy, became a national leader, serving as chair of the Women’s Owners Network and later president of the National Franchisee Leadership Alliance, representing owner‑operators across the United States. WON and NFLA are McDonald’s-sponsored groups in which leadership positions are elected by fellow owner-operators.
Clervoix grew up watching them operate effectively and efficiently. She began her McDonald’s career in 1994 as a crew member. She kept climbing from crew to general manager, office manager, area supervisor, business manager and now operations director.
She stepped away at times, working as a licensed real estate agent, a classroom teacher and a writer. But she always returned, bringing back a broader understanding of people, community and leadership.
When Clervoix rejoined her family’s ownership company, Stingley Management, full‑time, the organization operated 15 restaurants and had a seasoned leadership team. Her mother was traveling constantly for national McDonald’s leadership roles. Her father, then in his 80s, was ready to slow down.
To prepare for her new career, Clervoix learned the back office first, including taxes, payroll, insurance and claims, then moved into supervision and operations.
As the family prepared to sell several stores, the senior leadership team retired. Soon, Clervoix started running the entire operation herself.
“I kind of just jumped in,” she said. “I didn’t think about it. I didn’t strategize. I just answered the call.”
Now, Stingley Management owns restaurants across the Valley, including Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport plus locations at 51st Avenue and Cactus, I‑17 and Thunderbird, I‑17 and Deer Valley, 19th Avenue and Bell, Seventh Street and Bell, and Seventh Avenue and Union Hills.
DEEPER DIVE: 10 Arizona restaurants make Yelp’s Top 100 Mexican food spots
Leading through crisis
Clervoix sharpened her leadership skills during the COVID‑19 pandemic. While most airport businesses shut down, Stingley Management stayed open.
“In my humble opinion, the world changed,” she said.
Employees were grieving. Managers lost parents. An accounts payable staff member lost her husband. Clervoix realized the organization needed operational and emotional stability.
She brought in a consultant from the Disney Institute and began rebuilding the culture.
“We wanted to create a people culture,” she said. “Now we’re switching over to building a hospitality culture. Every time you go to Chick‑fil‑A, what do they say? ‘My pleasure.’ We have to create a culture of hospitality.”
Community involvement became part of that shift. Stingley Management hosted McTeacher’s Nights, rodeo activations at WestWorld, backpack giveaways, and McCommunity Days. These events brought nonprofits into the restaurants for two hours and gave a portion of the proceeds to the organizations.
Clervoix’s leadership extends far beyond operations. She sponsors Girls on the Run, a program she relied on as a newly divorced mom in Chicago. She also volunteers with Ronald McDonald House Charities. She serves on United Way’s Women United Steering Committee, focusing on literacy hubs, and regularly hosts Coffee with a Cop events with Phoenix Police Department.
“It all intertwines,” she said. “Maybe people are starting to come to us because they came to our McTeacher’s Night, or they saw us at the rodeo and heard our story.”
Clervoix’s work ethic comes from her Midwestern upbringing, namely in Muir, Michigan, a historic village of 600 people where her grandparents lived on a dairy farm.
“If we needed to dig a ditch, we were all digging a ditch,” she said. “Work was hard, but it felt good because we were all doing it together.”
Clervoix lived throughout the Midwest, but her family moved to Arizona, where she graduated from Desert Mountain High School. She then earned degrees at Phoenix College and DePaul University, where she studied psychology.
“I’m into people,” she said. “I always want to know the who, what, why and where people came from.”
Clervoic owns 49% of Stingley Management and is completing McDonald’s Next Generation Training Program — a rigorous initiative that prepares qualified family members to become fully licensed operators.
“They make sure you understand every single thing,” she said. “There are a lot of things your parents may have taken care of that you didn’t have to worry about.”
When she completes the program at the end of this year, she will be able to buy and sell restaurants independently. She will then, officially, carry her parents’ legacy forward while building her own.
“I’m not trying to be my parents,” she said. “I’m trying to honor what they built and make sure the next generation knows exactly why it mattered.”
