Kat Cole
“Connected-Creative-Conscious-Community building Capitalist, Biz Advisor, MBA, Coffee-loving Chronic Learner”
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Sharing the story of her accelerated rise up the corporate ladder, from her start working as a hostess to leading some of the world’s best-known food brands, Kat Cole provides insight and perspective on what it takes to create and lead successful teams, drive innovation and growth, lead with heart and sustain excellence.
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Kat Cole’s twitter handle reads “Connected-Creative-Conscious-Community building Capitalist, Biz Advisor, MBA, Coffee-loving Chronic Learner”—this not only describes her as a person, it describes the philosophies she applies to business, brands and life. As a leader who is unusually connected to communities through social media, is very active in advising and investing in start-ups, and is an avid humanitarian in some of the poorest areas of the world, Cole sticks out like a sore thumb in the crowd of her foodservice and franchise industry peers. She is a YGL (Young Global Leader) of the World Economic Forum, is starting a foundation to fund creative, sustainable approaches to education and self-sufficiency, and is one of only two foodservice company leaders listed on CNBC’s Next 25 List Innovators, Leaders and Disruptors—2014, which is dominated by tech start-ups and a few financial groups and Fortune 50 companies. She is passionate about creating and highlighting opportunities, innovation and community building that come out of the foodservice industry.
For the past four years, Cole has been president of Cinnabon, Inc. where she was accountable for leading, evolving and building the team and multi-channel brand. In her four years as president at Cinnabon, her team and franchisees have accomplished franchise unit growth (1200 in 55 countries), profitability, franchisee satisfaction, philanthropic partnerships, and comp sales performance that is the strongest the brand has seen in over a decade. In that same time, Cinnabon’s awareness, cult following, social media engagement, and multi-channel retail products (70 products in 70,000 points of distribution) and brand extensions have been in the top of its segment and the industry at large. In 2013, Cinnabon passed $1 billion in annual branded product sales globally through all retail channels and continued to grow beyond that in 2014.
As of January 2015, FOCUS Brands continues to grow in a new structure to leverage its scale and fuel continued global, multi-channel growth. Cole has been promoted to take on the role of Group President at FOCUS Brands Inc. (parent company to Cinnabon, Inc.) leading the innovative, high growth division building all brands at FOCUS in the US and internationally in consumer packaged goods, foodservice licensing, global licensed platforms and E-commerce. FOCUS has over 4,000 ice cream shops, bakeries, restaurants and cafés in the United States and 60 countries under the Moe’s, Schlotzsky’s, Auntie Anne’s, Carvel, McAllister’s Deli, Seattle’s Best Coffee and Cinnabon Brands. Prior to her role with Cinnabon and FOCUS Brands, Inc., Cole was vice president of training and development for Hooters of America, Inc., company which operates and franchises restaurants and manages the Hooters® brand entities.
Her story is often shared for inspiration as she moved up from working as a hostess at 17 years old in restaurants to server, bartender, traveling globally to help open new franchises learning every job in the restaurant business. Cole joined Hooters’ corporate office at 20, advanced to various management and leadership positions, becoming a vice president at Hooters at the age of 26, making her one of the youngest executives in chain restaurants. She was a member of the Hooters executive team that built the franchise to 400 units in 28 countries, eventually being sold to private equity in late 2010. She completed her Master of Business Administration degree at Georgia State University in her final two years as an executive at Hooters and while chair of the board of the Georgia Restaurant Association and Board member of the Women’s Foodservice Forum.
Cole is the co-founder of Changers of Commerce along with Amanda Hite, founder of Be The Change (BTC) Revolutions—a leading social movements agency. Changers of Commerce is a movement and group of leaders that identify with mixing money and meaning and making as much of a difference in the world as they make a profit. Being a Connected, Creative, and Conscious Capitalist not only produces return on investment, it connects with stakeholders, including current and emerging employees and consumers who will drive business and build brands for many years to come. Changers of Commerce is a group that believes the way forward in business and society is through thoughtful alliances and partnerships that build strong, profitable businesses that can be an engine for thriving communities.
Her personal story, business approach and perspectives on leadership have been the subject of feature articles in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, Cosmopolitan and many other business, trade and interest publications. Cole is a sought-after speaker and consultant on leadership development, brand building, change management, and brand innovation and growth. She has been a featured guest on CBS, CNN, Bloomberg CNBC, MSNBC and more. Cole was awarded the “Distinguished Young Alumni Award” from Georgia State University J. Mack Robinson School of Business in 2011, was featured with Cinnabon on CBS’ Undercover Boss in 2012, was named one of Fortune magazine’s “40 Under 40” in 2013 and CNBC’s “Next 25 List of Innovators, Leaders and Disruptors” 2014. In January 2015, she assumed the role as chair of the board of the Women’s Foodservice Forum.
She has made her mark in franchising, business leadership and brand building with a servant leader mindset, approachable style, penchant for business model innovation, and ability to build flexible, entrepreneurial-minded teams that love what they do and drive strong financial results. She is often quoted as saying “don’t forget where you came from, but don’t you dare let it solely define you”, a mantra she applies still today to encourage learning, constant improvement and helping teams and businesses embrace their roots while driving innovation and growth.
Whether you are building a brand or need to revitalize one, no one has better insight on the grit and resilience required to do so than Kat Cole. Why does a brand matter? What is your role—as an employee at any level—in building and upholding a brand? How do you build a brand culture? How do you culturally and operationally integrate a new brand or reposition an old one? How do you redefine yourself, your team or your company? There are many risks associated with the fact that a brand is in the hands of many people, but there are also many opportunities. With a wealth of experience and success working with brands, Cole answers the crucial questions most pertinent to your audience, and sharing stories from her own career and her involvement in various sectors can help organizations and brands in any industry expertly navigate the complex challenges that they face.
During Kat Cole’s over four-year tenure as president, Cinnabon, a company then struggling to be competitive, quickly resurged as a multichannel, global brand with over 1,200 stores in 56 countries and saw its sales pass the $1 billion mark. Cole knows you innovate and succeed faster when you are more observant and immersed in the action, and understands which qualities are critical to help you iterate and adapt more quickly—even in traditionally slow or mature industries and organizations. She also knows that it takes hustle, heart, grit and resilience to follow through after you have taken an initial risk. From her well-known “hotshot rule” to her lessons in “hustle muscle,” Cole shares the most significant stories and lessons about leadership and innovation that she has learned throughout her esteemed career. She explores how to discern meaningful patterns, explains the essential qualities and characteristics she looks for in new hires, and addresses how to manage tough decisions and impactful innovations that may have short-term trade-offs, but will provide great return in the long run. In this revealing, authentic and compelling presentation, Cole can customize her remarks to speak expertly on a variety of topics, including:
- Change management and how to accelerate change no matter where you are in the organization
- Team building, alignment and communication
- The bridge between start-ups and big businesses and what they can each learn from each other
- Common threats in every industry and how to deal with consumer preferences, regulations and requests that create conflict, tensions and headwinds
- Leading and innovating from within—from hackathons to innovation culture, to creative internal advisory groups, many answers you seek to lead your industry lie within
- How to innovate your business model: As she puts it, “If you don’t, someone else will,” which is tempered by her principle that “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”
Kat Cole draws heavily on her own personal and professional experiences and upbringing to share how they have greatly impacted the leader and woman she is today in this inspiring and thought-provoking presentation. Sharing the story of her rise from humble beginnings to powerful global executive, Cole shares how some of the most important lessons she has learned about leadership are lessons she learned as a young child growing up with a single mother. Whether she is doing humanitarian work in Africa or running a multinational billion-dollar brand, Cole understands the power of acts of empathy and believes that you have to have hustle and heart to get where you want to go. She carries and shares the beliefs that employees and companies are built to last when they stand for something that matters and make a positive impact. In addition to Cole’s passion for creating and highlighting opportunities, innovation and community building, helping women succeed in business and leadership is another topic to which she can speak. An active angel investor, humanitarian and philanthropist, she remains engaged and focused on elevating self-sufficiency through education, technology and access to opportunities around the world.
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