C-Suite Profiles: Sandi Moody, Monica Nicolau

Our 4th Annual Women's Issue of Franchise Update magazine featured profiles of 28 "C-Suite Women" who are not presidents, CEOs, or founders. While not necessarily in the spotlight, these women fill critical roles necessary for a franchise system to prosper and grow. Their titles run the C-Suite gamut: chief marketing/brand officers, chief financial/accounting officers, chief development officers, chief legal officers, chief operating officers, chief technology/information officers, chief people/talent/HR officers, a chief communications officer, and a chief quality, supply chain, and commercialization officer. Several hold dual positions, including executive vice president, senior vice president, vice president, co-owner, co-founder, and board member. In short, effective female leaders who help make the franchise world go round. In recognition of their contributions to their systems, their franchisees, and to franchising as a whole, we're presenting their profiles, two per week.

This week: Sandi Moody, Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer at Chick-fil-A and Monica Nicolau, Chief Technology Officer at Sylvan Learning.

Sandi Moody

Title: Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer
Brand: Chick-fil-A
Years in franchising: 26
Years with current brand: 26
Franchised units: NA
Total units: 1,967 (est.)
Brand revenue: $6.7 billion (est.)

Background: Sandi Moody began her career at Chick-fil-A in 1991 as an Accountant. Over the years, she advanced through several positions: Administrator, Finance; Supervisor, Finance; Manager, Business Analysis; Senior Manager, Business Analysis; and Vice President, Business Insight. In November 2015 she was promoted to Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer, where her role is to create the vision for Financial Services based on anticipated business growth, and to lead the Financial Services Leadership Team (consisting of representatives from Restaurant Reporting, Corporate Reporting, Payroll and Benefits, Treasury, Tax, and Business Insights). She is a CPA and a Chartered Global Management Accountant. She earned her B.S. in Accounting from Berry College and attended the Harvard Business School Executive Education Advanced Management Program. She is Treasurer for the Landmark Christian School.

Monica Nicolau

Title: Chief Technology Officer
Brand: Sylvan Learning
Years in franchising: 16
Years with current brand: 6
Franchised units: 740
Total units: 750
Brand revenue: $29.5 million

Background: Monica Nicolau joined Sylvan Learning in March 2011 as Senior Director of Software Development, and in April 2013 became Vice President of Software Development. In June 2015 she was promoted to her current position of Chief Technology Officer. Building a technology team and working together with many other functions in the organization to design and build SylvanSync, the brand's digital tutoring delivery platform, is among her proudest accomplishments. Before coming to Sylvan Learning, she worked at Micros Systems (now Oracle Hospitality), where she began as a Software Engineer and moved up to Director of Software Engineering before coming to Sylvan. She holds an M.S. in Computer Science with a specialization in Software Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.