Kieran Donahue, GoTo Foods’ new chief commercial officer, joined the company last month from Dine Brands, where she previously served as chief marketing officer for IHOP.
Donahue has worked in the hospitality space for 25 years, starting on the hotel side, where she worked for Hilton and Marriott, before moving on to restaurants.
In making the career move from one platform company to another, Donahue said she is leaning into the benefits of portfolio-based companies, and her long-term goal is to “unlock the full potential” of GoTo Foods’ platform of seven brands.
“When I think about the role that I'm going to be playing here, It's really about… driving and elevating our brands’ performance and creating a seamless customer experience across our seven brands,” Donahue said. “Ideally, what we're trying to do here is to create an unparalleled advantage for our franchisees. When they join GoTo Foods and decide to fly one of our brand flags, they know that they're going to tap into an engine that is going to give them scale and efficiencies that they couldn't achieve on their own.”
GoTo Foods, parent company to Auntie Anne’s, Jamba, Carvel, Cinnabon, Moe’s Southwest Grill, Schlotzsky’s, and McAlister’s Deli, made the transition from Focus Brands in February, and part of that transformation was about unifying the brands under one cohesive umbrella with shared resources.
Donahue said that the ongoing brand unification process, including a new shared POS system under Qu and the rollout of new mobile apps to every brand, has created more financial opportunities for franchisees.
“I think that in the past, a lot of the brands had been pretty individual and weren’t under a collective umbrella,” Donahue said. “When you unify and create those efficiencies and scaling opportunities, and really lean into that [platform], it will be a great opportunity for us to continue to drive revenue for our franchisees.”
With all seven brands under a uniform point-of-sale system and tech stack, Donahue said, GoTo Foods is journeying toward becoming a unified digital and physical space, with individual brands that have the same customer experience standards. For example, each of the seven brands uses a proprietary pricing tool that franchisees use to determine menu pricing based on past history, guest insights, and pricing elasticity. The company also has a proprietary guest survey tool in place that can help franchisees determine what needs improvement or changes, including pricing.
“We can connect everything through our tech stack, and understanding our guests’ view on experience and pricing is so important,” Donahue said. “Ultimately, when we're looking at everything we’re doing through other connected things like our apps, websites, and kiosks, then we can have a holistic view of the brands. Creating proprietary tech tools is challenging, but it allows us to keep all of our customer data in one place.”
Through proprietary tech tools and the continued unification of GoTo Foods brands, Donahue believes that she and her team will be able to unlock more profitability for franchisees and satisfaction for guests.
“The No. 1 thing that I'm focused on is making sure that all of the commercial engines under me are driving performance for each of our seven brands,” she said.
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