FranchiseU!

Michele is a marketing industry veteran with over 25 years of experience building brands and driving enterprise-wide transformational growth. With experience across health care, consumer products and retail F&B, she has demonstrated success building consumer affinity for iconic brands in the US and Asia. Throughout her career, Michele has actively sought career opportunities across a range of industries, channels and geographies. These diverse experiences have contributed to her success in driving business and brand growth.

“Whether it's business ownership, management or sports, a coach's main job is helping individuals and the team reach their full potential.“ Joe Delatte has spent his entire career building and sharpening skills in business management, leadership, strategic marketing, sales, product development, process improvement and creative thinking. Along the way he has held key marketing positions for several large communications players, including Landmark and Cox Communications. He has also owned and operated a home services franchise that quickly became one of the area's highest quality and well known home services companies. Now as the President of Home Clean Heroes he gets to put it all to work coaching our franchisees and corporate team to help them each reach their full potential, and their personal dreams. Click below to listen to the episode and make sure to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you enjoy your favorite podcasts.

Tim Swackhammer is a hardworking family man. Married for years and has three children - two boys and a girl. In addition to being a loving father, Tim is also a serial entrepreneur with interests in several businesses, including Mold Medics. This spirit can really be traced back to his father and his experiences in franchising. His father was able to be extremely successful with franchising, and wanted to give that ambition & accomplishment to others. Seeing how many people were trapped in homes with poor air quality, Tim dedicated himself to learning everything he could about indoor air quality and designing a remediation company focused on the people, not the property. Through franchising, Tim is working to bring these solutions to people all over the US.

Bob Moore has a wealth of experience ranting from being a single-unit franchisee to serving as a Regional Director for a franchisor for over a decade. Moore shares highlights with Dr. Kathy Gosser on this episode of Franchise U!. Bob's franchise career spans 30 years as both a franchisee and working on support staffs of franchisor. Bob started with Domino's Pizza - spending 6 years in various roles and the last 7 years as a multi-unit franchisee. Bob also was a Regional Director for ServiceMaster Clean and spent 10 years with Dunkin Brands, the parent company for Dunkin Donuts & Baskin Robbins!

Frank Toral shares his journey from being an attorney to an educational franchisor. Torel tells Dr. Kathy Gosser why he wants Neighborhood Kids to be nationwide in the near future on this episode of Franchise U!. Co-founder Frank Toral is the President and has been since our inception. Since October 2019, he has presided over our Wellington, Florida–based Neighborhood Kids Preschool, Inc. and its affiliates. Before and during the early years of Neighborhood Kids, from June 2016 through March 2020, Mr. Toral was the Pastor and Director of Promise Life Chapel, Inc., also in Wellington, Florida. Additionally, prior to founding our franchise organization, Mr. Toral was CEO of Toral Law in Davie, Florida, from October 1995 through October 2019. Click below to listen to the episode and make sure to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you enjoy your favorite podcasts.

DeNita Carani shares her history with multiple businesses and unique perspective on franchising and the animal care industry with Dr. Kathy Gosser on this week's episode of Franchise U!. Ms DeNita Carani is versatile, high impact operations executive who evaluates processes, technology and operations, uncovering opportunities and creating strategies that drive optimal profitability, growth, and business success. Her passion is leading successful change. Throughout her career, she has delivered transformative strategies that turned around struggling teams and fast-tracked their success. Leveraging a strong background in both B2B and B2C businesses ranging from startups to national corporations, She worked across an organization with all stakeholders, fostering the strong alliances that enable mission success. A powerful listener and influencer, she views challenges as opportunities. She designs actionable solutions to difficult, highly complex business challenges to rapidly grow and maintain a strong competitive advantage. Ms DeNita Carani is the owner of multiple small businesses and passionate franchise leader Click below to listen to the episode and make sure to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you enjoy your favorite podcasts.

Marcus Tom shares the philosophy and practices that lead to growth at ServiceMaster Clean and Merry Maids with Dr. Kathy Gosser on this week's episode of FranchiseU!.

Amy and Josh Arnold share how they help others spread joy with Card My Yard during this week's conversation with Dr. Kathy Gosser on FranchiseU!.

Larry Hughes shares innovations developed by the 7-Eleven, Inc. as well as his own unique perspective on business leadership with Dr. Kathy Gosser on this week’s episode of FranchiseU!. Here is a short biography of Mr. Hughes: Larry Hughes is the Vice President, Corporate Human Resources and Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion at 7-Eleven, Inc. In this capacity, he is the lead human resource business partner for all functions reporting in to the Chief Financial Officer, Chief Administrative Officer, Chief Merchant, and Chief Marketing Officer, as well as responsible for leading and coordinating all enterprise diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Prior to this assignment, Larry has served in many different leadership roles across the 7-Eleven enterprise. He has twice served as a Division/Zone Vice President of Operations, leading operational business units in both the Northwest and the Southwest regions of the United States, with store counts ranging from 700 to 1300 units and annual revenues reaching $2.5 billion. He has also twice served as Vice President, Training and Development, responsible for the design and delivery of all training activity and materials for all associates and 7-Eleven Franchisees, as well as organizational leadership development initiatives. He has also served 7-Eleven as the Vice President, Franchise Systems, responsible for development of franchise policies, franchise marketing and sales, and franchisee engagement platforms. He joined the company in 2009. Prior to joining 7-Eleven, Larry served in a variety of leadership assignments in the retailing and hospitality sectors. He managed a retail division for T-Mobile USA, earning the coveted “Fire in the Belly” award for the top performing division two years in a row. Prior to that, he was a Regional Manager with Bath and Body Works, where he led turnaround operations in multiple regions. Larry has also launched and led a not-for profit organization which focused on accelerating the growth of inner city-based businesses. As the Managing Director of the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City – Kansas City, he led efforts that assisted more than 30 urban core-based entities with strategy development, systems evaluations, and identification of growth capital resources. He later applied the expertise he developed working with small and diverse businesses at ChevronTexaco, where he developed strategies to support $1.1 billion in purchasing from small businesses across 24 domestic business units while coordinating their Small Business and Supplier Diversity Program. Larry earned his Doctor of Education in Human and Organizational Learning from the George Washington University and his Master of Business Administration in Strategy and Managerial/Organizational Behavior from the University of Chicago. He also earned a Master of Science in Management from Baker University in Kansas. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and served as a Field Artillery Officer in both active duty and reserve components. His military leadership experiences include two separate company-level command assignments. Larry’s doctoral dissertation, “Exploring the Experience of the African-American Male Worker Assigned to the African-American Male Leader” offers insight into the dyadic relationship between minority leaders and their minority associates while illustrating the need for greater racial diversity on organizational leadership teams. His 2021 book, “Challenging Goliath: Leadership Lessons from the Life of King David” explores leadership truths drawn from the life of one of the most widely known figures in the Bible.

Lauren Fernandez shares her journey from being an in-house attorney to CEO with Dr. Kathy Gosser on this episode of Franchise U!. Lauren Fernandez is the CEO and Founder of Full Course, a restaurant development and investment firm which incubates and accelerates emerging fast casual restaurant brands. Full Course guides restaurant owners through a process of optimization, strategic growth planning and development, and supports investment for rapid expansion. Ms. Fernandez has been both a multi-unit franchisee and investor, serving as a strategic growth partner for brands such as Chicken Salad Chick. Lauren previously served as the General Counsel for FOCUS Brands where she was instrumental in the rapid growth of the licensing and franchise programs. Lauren holds an undergraduate degree from Stetson University, as well as a Juris Doctorate and MBA from Emory University. A Florida native, she has called Atlanta home for almost two decades.