Franchise Spotlight with Katherine LeBlanc

Kim Gubera, President & CEO of PIRTEK, stepped into her role in 2019 and did something almost no leader does — she visited every single franchisee before changing anything. In this conversation, she shares how that decision built the cultural foundation that drove a record-breaking 2025, and how PIRTEK maintains a standard of excellence — including through moments that were anything but easy....

Steven and Jason Parker have been in the pet care industry since 1999 and franchising K9 Resorts since 2011. In this conversation, they walk Katherine through the disciplined, long-view philosophy that's gotten them to 50 open locations — and what it actually means to award franchises instead of selling them. In this episode: Why they turned down one of their earliest franchise candidates — and ho...

Josh Lyon has been building ScentHound as their COO from seven units to 157 - and he's not slowing down. In this conversation, he gets into what it actually takes to scale a franchise brand with operational discipline intact: the team transitions nobody talks about, the franchisee adoption gap that compounds every time you add complexity, and why simplicity isn't a nice-to-have - it's the differen...

Doug Flaig, CEO of Stratus Clean, is in the middle of one of the harder things a franchise leader can navigate - a full brand transformation - and he's doing it with a three-tier franchisee network watching every move. In this conversation, Doug gets into why answering the "why" before the "what" is the only change management that actually works, how he uses EOS and tier-based communication groups...

Alex and Myriam Guerrero didn't plan on becoming franchise owners — Alex stumbled into it at a USO transition event when a franchise broker showed up and offered a presentation. Four years later, they're running a Tint World location in El Paso, scaling to three stores, and building the kind of franchisee-franchisor trust that most brands spend years trying to manufacture. This conversation gets i...

Alex Pericchi has spent 12 years as VP of Marketing at PuroClean watching what actually drives franchisee adoption — and what quietly kills it. His answer this year is radical simplification: fewer activities, clearer direction, and a message repeated from every corner of the organization until it lands. If you've ever wondered why franchisees aren't executing on your marketing programs, this conv...

Jon Sica, President of Batteries Plus, joins Katherine LeBlanc at IFA 2026 for one of the most practical episodes of Franchise Leader Spotlight yet. Jon breaks down why the brand standards conversation lands completely differently when you lead with exit strategy — and how Batteries Plus has been building that into their franchise development process for five years through their Full Circuit progr...

Kathy George, President of Spherion Staffing and Recruiting, joins Katherine LeBlanc at IFA to talk about the leadership framework that helped an 80-year-old staffing franchise outpace its competitors and its parent company in a year the industry was forecasted to contract. Kathy walks through the 20 Mile March - the collective two-year goal structure she set the night before getting on stage at n...

Jennifer Durham has scaled franchise brands across restaurants, hospitality, and wellness - from Checkers & Rally's to Cooper's Hawk, Hand & Stone, and now Potbelly, where she's leading the brand's push from 467 shops to 2,000 locations. She's also a CPA, which means when she talks about unit economics, she means it. In this conversation at IFA 2026, Jennifer makes the case that franchisin...

Kevin King didn't become President and CEO of Donatos Pizza by staying in his lane. In this conversation, Katherine LeBlanc sits down with Kevin at IFA to talk about what it actually takes to build a franchise brand that scales and what separates the leaders who get there from the ones who don't. They get into how Donatos is using automation and AI not to replace people, but to free them up for th...

Leads are up at Go Mini's. Revenue didn't keep pace. Chris Walls, President & CEO, knows exactly why - and he's not blaming the marketing. In this episode of the Franchise Leader Spotlight, Chris sits down with host Katherine LeBlanc to talk about the conversion-first mindset Go Mini's is building across its franchise network in 2026. From closing rate as a core KPI to franchisee adoption of n...

What does it look like to grow a franchise brand without compromising your values? In this episode of Franchise Leader Spotlight , Katherine LeBlanc sits down with Paul Pickett of Wild Birds Unlimited to explore how sustainable growth is built through care, discipline, and long-term thinking. Paul shares why protecting brand integrity sometimes means saying no to the wrong franchisee fit, how lead...

In this episode of Franchise Leader Spotlight , Katherine LeBlanc sits down with Quinn Newhall, Chief Operating Officer of Clean Eatz, to discuss what it means to lead with a franchisee-first mindset. As a former operator turned executive, Quinn shares how his experience in the field shapes his leadership approach, why local store marketing is the backbone of sustainable growth, and what franchise...

What does it really take to become a successful multi-unit, multi-brand operator? In this episode of Franchise Leadership Spotlight , Mitch Cohen shares his journey from entering franchising to building the infrastructure required to scale across multiple brands and locations. We discuss: How he evaluates franchise opportunities The systems and leadership structure required to grow beyond a single...