The Open for Opportunity Roadshow headed to the Delaware Valley to visit local franchises, company headquarters, and business and academic leaders in the Philadelphia area and Wilmington, DE.
The visit kicked off with a meeting at Benetrends to introduce the group to Open for Opportunity and IFA’s efforts in Washington.
The group then visited CertaPro Painters Headquarters, where the IFA team met with President and CEO Mike Stone and dozens of franchisees around the country, who all shared their remarkable stories of how they got into franchising and what they have learned from running a business. Devin Smith of East Tennessee shared how he started as a sales associate at his CertaPro location, and with enough mentoring and a thorough understand of the business, was able to buy the franchise himself when his boss retired.
The following day the team saw CertaPro in action, touring Denise and Jeff Garvey’s location in Wilmington and meeting with their employees. The duo started in franchising looking for a second career they could go in together and opened their first location – now they cover the entire state of Delaware. From there then saw Mike Levitsky’ FASTSIGNS location and Kathy Anderson’s Stretch Lab who both thanked franchising for giving them an opportunity open a business.
Friday morning, Thomas Jefferson University hosted Open for Opportunity for a roundtable discussion with local franchisee/franchisors, local minority business leaders, and elected officials to share best practices, resources available to communities of color and underserved communities, and future steps to make the small business community more inclusive. Richard Snow of WSFS Bank and Chair of the Black Franchise Leadership Council, led the discussion, “This is about changing communities, changing the generational wealth narrative, and being more inclusive, so this roadshow tells those stories because stories connect people.”
The visit concluded at Rita’s Franchise Headquarters for some Italian Ice and frozen custard, plus a discussion with Rita’s executives, IFA executives, local franchisees & franchisors, elected officials or staff, and community leaders to discuss the state of the franchise sector.
The roundtable included:
- Mayor Jim Kenney, Mayor of Philadelphia
- Patrick Murphy, Former U.S. Representative
- Regina Hairston, CEO of African American Chamber of Commerce
- Devon Mitchell, Anytime Fitness
- David Dix, President of the Pennsylvania Chamber for Black Owned Business
- Alesia Visconti, FranServ CEO
- Blessy Thomas, Innovate Capital Growth Fund
- Dr. Michelle Burroughs, WSFS Senior Vice President, Chief Diversity Officer
- Joseph Johnson, president of Disrupt Foods and COO of Malcolm Inc.
- Lisette Martinez, Chief Diversity Officer, Thomas Jefferson University
- Ed Samane, FranSave
- Dr. Ellen Bryant Brown, Quality Inn Hotel
- Anuj Gupta, Chief of Staff to Rep. Dwight Evans.
The visit concluded at Rita’s Franchise Headquarters for some Italian Ice and frozen custard, plus a discussion with Rita’s executives, IFA executives, local franchisees & franchisors, elected officials or staff, and community leaders to discuss the state of the franchise sector.
