What Is Your Role as CEO?

In each issue of our Franchise Update magazine, we profile franchise CEOs and presidents, asking each the same set of questions. Their responses say a lot about who they are, their culture, their values, and where they're taking their companies. We focus the Q&A on four areas: Leadership, Management, Personal, and the Bottom Line.

Throughout the year, we'll be selecting one of those questions - and providing answers from the previous year's profiles. If you'd like to learn more about these franchise leaders and what they have to say on other topics, we'll also provide links back to their full profile.

The first question in this series is the first question we ask in every CEO profile: "What is your role as CEO?"

Shannon Hudson, CEO and Co-Founder, 9Round Franchising
The job requires me wearing many hats, from recruiting franchisees, to training those franchisees and trainers, to maintaining an active role in their operations. But one of my primary roles as CEO is to push along the company's growth. Even with more than 740 studios open worldwide, I think we still have a very long way to go before reaching a maximum number of locations. I can see the brand at potentially 5,000 locations worldwide in the next few years. See full profile here.

Nicole Ossenfort, CEO and President, Liberty Tax
I am passionate about Liberty Tax, and I am focused on its growth and prosperity. See full profile here.

Rob Price, CEO and President, School of Rock
My primary role is to listen to our owners, school teams, and students to shape a set of priorities to strengthen the delivery of our mission. We are a growing, passionate community dedicated to enriching lives through performance-based music education. As leader of this community, I have to make good choices about what, when, and how. My role also is to ensure high standards and follow through on our commitments. See full profile here.

Larry Oberly, President and CEO, SpeedPro Imaging
I have three major roles. 1) Be the face of the organization and set and communicate the mission and vision for the network. It's my role to think about immediate needs, but also five or more years ahead. Our regional developers and studio owners have invested in the brand, and it's my role to help them maximize the return on their investment and help ensure we are positioned to provide the best, most creative and responsive products and services to our customers. 2) Grow existing studio sales and profits. This goes hand in hand with the first point as we need to leverage more from what we do today and also look at innovation as an important growth vehicle for our studio owners. Without successful and growing studios, we could never achieve our collective goals. 3) Increase the number of studios. Adding more studios works along with better, same-studio metrics. Having more studios makes it easier to reach and serve the end user and provides more muscle for our brand marketing and awareness campaigns. See full profile here.

Tammy Whitworth, Chair and CEO, Window World
It's not easily defined. I'm in the office three or four days a week, so I rely on our president and a very capable team of individuals to oversee the day-to-day activities. My responsibility is to focus on overall strategies and long-term goals and visions. I'm also committed to keeping the company in line with our core values and history of giving back through our charitable arm, Window World Cares. See full profile here.

Carl T. Howard, President and CEO, Fazoli's
To continue to foster the relationship between our guests and the brand. Being guest-centric is critical in today's rapidly changing economy. My overall responsibility is very broad, but besides our passion of exceeding our guest expectations we want to provide a great experience for our team members and investment partners. When you can hit the trifecta of happy guests, happy employees, and happy investors it is a very fun role. See full profile here.

David Lopez, CEO, Dental Fix Rx
I oversee the strategy and drive the vision and actionable steps needed to move the company forward. My main role is strategic planning and sitting the team down with a 90-day road map on a quarterly basis. I'm always looking 3 to 4 years ahead, and this allows me to present the trends, the strategy to address what is and isn't working, and to understand the opportunities available. Once the 90 days are up we review how we did and map out the next challenge. See full profile here.