February 11, 2021 • 36 mins
In this episode, Sam and Amy chat with entrepreneur, leader, investor, advocate for gender equality and education, mother of two, and world traveler, Kat Cole. Kat discusses her choice to leave college to pursue a business opportunity that would lead her to become VP of Hooters at the age of 26; the importance of female mentorship in her professional journey; and coming into herself as a business leader. Kat is so full of life, energy and insight, and we're so excited to share her story with you!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm Sam Edis and I'm Amy Nelson. Welcome to
What's Her Story? With Sam and Amy. This is a
show about the world's most remarkable women, their professional and
personal journeys. Together, we'll hear from Gold medalists, best selling authors,
and leaders of the world's most iconic brands. Today, we
have Cat Cole on the show. She's spent decades as
(00:24):
an executive leader in international brands like Cinnamon, Focus Brands,
and Hooters, where she stepped into an executive role in
her early twenties. I first met Cat years ago at
the Forbes Women's Leadership Conference, and I was blown away
by her, both by her experience and her confidence. Although
I haven't met her in person, Sam, Cat and I
(00:44):
are Twitter friends, um we connected on Twitter, and she
is an iconic giver of advice in wisdom, and she's
someone I learned to listen to pretty quickly. So, Cat,
you just left a ten year stint at the Helm
of Focus Brands. What made you decide to leave, you know,
to two and a half years ago. I felt I
had done all that I could, you know, and then
(01:06):
I kind of looked around at the organization we were
in front of. Yet another acquisition, which was the acquisition
of John Majuice and the There were a few things
that sort of sucked me back in for another few years.
One was the ability to take a public company private,
and I realized that in order to set the company
up for success, even if it were just for what
is my legacy, but also things like my own financial
(01:29):
investment in the company, there was an opportunity to upgrade
many of the leaders. All the presidents of the businesses
reported into me, and the businesses needed not all of them,
but many different leaders to shepherd them through the next
few years than what the previous years had required. And
then COVID hit and that was definitely another call to lead,
(01:50):
and I was so glad that I stayed and just
leaned in. I'm so proud of the team and the
work we did. And and then you know, racial reckoning
in the country, and being a leader in a consumer
facing brand through that movement, or at least the peak
of that movement, I believe it continues on in beautiful
(02:11):
ways today was also a serious privilege. All of that
led me to a place where I thought, now really
is the time. So how did you help franchisees through COVID.
That's a whole podcast episode. I think three, just three headlines.
One would be rallying the organization to have radical focus
(02:33):
on their behalf. You know, when things are chaotic, um
we see. What we seek more than positivity is stability
and clarity. And so we just got clear we were
only focused on two things. We were not going to
talk about anything if it didn't fit under one or
both of these buckets, and that was conservation of cash
(02:53):
and protection of people. That was it. You know, that
laser focus was liberating. It's like freedom within the framework,
and so that gave people calm, It made them feel
that there's someone at the steering wheel. The second was
highly frequent communication, just staying in touch. You're not alone,
(03:13):
what's going on with you, Here's what we're seeing, you know,
what are you hearing, Here's what I'm hearing, Here's what
you should so that when things are changing so much,
just multiple times a day, touching base. And then the
third was rallying around those two points of focus and
really helping them figure out how to conserve cash. We
reduced or completely got rid of royalties and advertising fund
(03:37):
and any of their obligations to us. We then would
call all the vendors on their behalf, and you know,
everybody's got bills to pay, including the vendors, But say, look,
I know you charge a monthly fee for this technology,
and I know that's what you need to stay in business,
but our business is literally shut down, so we need
you to do whatever you can for our franchisees. So cat,
(03:59):
how do you you, in a normal world and through
COVID motivate your own team. One way is never forgetting
to keep reiterating the mission and the why just that
why can keep pulling us up out of the muck um.
The second is a regular muscle of iteration around talent.
(04:22):
I can't be in the room all the time and
and and shouldn't be. And the leaders that are fit
for tomorrow may or may not be the leaders that
are there today. And especially if a company is in
high growth, some people on the team absolutely have potential
to grow and fill many future levels, but sometimes they
(04:46):
don't have the ability to do that fast enough for
what the organization needs. And I have those conversations of
advising founders of high growth, especially in the technology sector
where it's just crazy exponential growth, where they're having to
sit down and have conversations with team members that have
been with them since day one to explain why they're
not the person that is going to get that next role,
(05:08):
but yet try to do a good job to help
them understand what their future is and why to keep
them engaged and keep the culture really strong. And other
times the right thing to do is to put that
person that isn't ready but has so many other things
to give them that opportunity, and then sometimes to help
people find their their way out. So I want to
take you back to the mid nine nineties, your seventeen
(05:30):
years old. You take on a third part time job
at Hooters. How did that job impact the course of
your life? Um, I mean radically would be an understatement
with I mean no hyperbole, you know. I I thought
it was just like what that is for most people.
It's a waitress gig. I'm saving money, I'm paying my
(05:52):
way through school. It's nights and weekends. That's it. I mean,
that's really all it was. And in less than a year,
I was helping to support locations outside of my home location.
I had worked every job in the restaurant. I've been
a cook, I've been a bartender i'd been a manager,
it became so much more. Even before it became this
(06:15):
where the international part of the story begins. I was
putting myself through school, getting a computer science as an
electrical engineering degree. I had total plans to go on
to law school and these grand visions for myself that
were close to polar opposite of what I ended up doing.
And I was really good at it with less effort
than others. And then that collided with the company happening
(06:37):
to be in a crazy growth stage and meeting existing
team members who knew a lot about the business to
take on a great deal of responsibility by helping to
you know, plant flags to launch the brand in other
countries around the world. And so when I was nineteen,
I was asked to go open the first ever Hooters
franchise in Australia. I've never been on a plane, I
did not have a passport. I'd only been out of
(06:57):
floor that couple of times in my life. I mean,
I was a small town, small town girl. I mean,
Jacksonville is a big, spread out city, but anybody who's
been their nose, it's basically a collection of small towns.
And so I went to Sydney and it was so
cool as you can imagine. I was nineteen hooters girl,
you know, divorced parents like no one of any fancy
(07:20):
career to speak of. I don't know how many people
in my family actually had ever even been on airplanes.
It felt cool, but it felt like a one time thing.
And then I was asked to go to Mexico and
launch the franchise there. And then I was asked to
go to Argentina and launch the franchise in South America.
And before I knew it, I was no longer a
member of the team. I was running the team, showing
up early, getting the groundwork laid, setting the franchises up,
(07:42):
the supply chain, the media, the hiring, and then getting
it open um. So I was running them. And I
was failing college because I was never there. So when
I was twenty, I dropped out. I say, I dropped out.
I was failing. I chose to not improve that condition,
so I dropped out. Did you catch their eye? I mean,
you have all these peers, you're the youngest one there.
(08:04):
What was it that made them say, you, cat Cole,
we want you to go to Australia and open this restaurant. Yeah,
I mean it was a team. You know, there were
others that were chosen, but it was ten out of
the whole country, and so there were a few things.
One was that I knew all the jobs, and so
if you're going to send someone far away to help
(08:24):
with the business, it's pretty efficient to have people know
multiple roles. And so I do think the fact that
I had, by happenstance, just to be helpful when somebody
quit or needed to leave their shift early. That's how
it all happened. I wasn't trying to assemble a resume
of like restaurant jobs. It's just the bartender need to
go home to take care of her kid, and the
(08:45):
cook got mad and quit, or he got fired by
the manager because he was smoking pot out back, you
know whatever it was. And I'm like, yeah, I fried
chicken wings, or yeah I'll shut down the bar. Yeah.
And it was all good for me because it was
more money, you know, more hours. It was helping me
pay for college, and I was super curious to see
if I could figure it out. Plus I'm I've always
been a really helpful person, So that's one way. The
other was I was very good with my peers. I
(09:07):
volunteered to be a trainer back in the day when
we used to go to restaurants and sit down and
sometimes the server would come over with somebody trailing behind
them like a shadow. Ultimately, I didn't get the phone call.
The corporate office doesn't have hourly employees phone numbers. They
called the store and said, who are your best employees?
Who would you recommend? And Bonnie, who was the who
(09:27):
is a former Hooters girl herself who had become a
general manager of this multimillion dollar casual dining restaurant, recommended me.
She hired me when I was seventeen. She treated me
like an adult as an employee when I was eighteen,
super soft spoken, amazing operator. All of this wouldn't have
happened if she had not recommended me. Every boss I
(09:49):
ever had in that company until I worked for the CEO,
was a woman. Everyone, and I didn't realize it at
the time. I didn't know any different. I mean, it's
it have been focused on female sex appeal and certainly
marketed towards males, but that was a That company was,
at least at the time, run largely by women at
the unit level. Moving up from within. So by the
(10:11):
time I made it to boardrooms, I wasn't trying to
figure out how to be a dude. You know. I
had seen so many different types of leadership coming from
women that reflected their style, their personality. I was emboldened
and empowered. It was like going to an all girls
business school. For a long time. I was so my
(10:32):
cup runneth over with confidence in my ability to show
up in the world, and so I didn't waste energy
on the things that so many have to spend energy on.
And now for a quick break, we have to talk
about the fact that you are this icon of women's empowerment,
but you started out at a brand known for selling
burgers using women's sex appeal totally. How do you reconcile
(10:55):
that contradiction? Yeah, I think, I mean candidly. When I
was eighteen years old, there was no conflict. I was
having a great time. We were treated with respect. People
who were in the restaurant wanted to be there. I
wasn't confronted with the very real social consequences and conflict
that I would later confront as an executive. I was
(11:18):
twenty six, I became vice president of the company. At
that time doing five million in revenue. And I remember
going to a few women's conferences when I showed up
and gave them my business card and it had this
owl on it. I could I could set my watch
by the reaction, like three to one. Oh oh. It
(11:41):
was when to your point, I started leading women's organizations
championing women's efforts that were largely connected to the restaurant industry,
of which Hooters was a participant or member, that I
really started to feel that conflict. And I'm a deeply
reflective person. So when I would feel the conflict or
or some would just challenge me directly, I get it.
(12:04):
If you're a waitress, but you could go work anywhere
as an executive, Well not really, not when you're twenty
six years old. Tell me somebody else who would have
given me those opportunities in that scope of responsibility and
sent me around the world and giving me the diversity
of experiences. And at some point, yes, that became true.
And eventually, you know, I asked myself because I was
(12:24):
challenged by someone when we opened Hooters in Salt Lake City, Utah,
and I was challenged on a radio interview by someone
who said, you know how dare you. You're a hypocrite,
you are exploiting women. And I thought about it because
I had advice from a mentor in Argentina who he said,
anytime you're criticized, assume first it's correct, and then feel
(12:45):
your reaction to it. If if your reaction is visceral,
then it and it's still no, you can at least
then shift to not debating the what and focusing on
the why. But if you consider it and you think
there's little of this that's true, but maybe there's some
of it that's true, that it will keep me from
putting my foot in my mouth and I can acknowledge
(13:06):
that there is a legitimate challenge there. And that's what
I did in that case. I thought, you know, there
is some conflict here, and I'm comfortable with acknowledging that. However,
even then I thought my pride and what I know
we've built internally, like more education for more women, like
impact scholarships and funding than any other retail company had
done up to that point. That were retail companies that
(13:29):
were far larger than us. Um all of the health
and awareness and things we did for women, and me
being one example of many, all the women who moved
up into these leadership positions. I had so much of
that information that my pride in how we did what
we did and my gratitude for everything I had received
outweighed the concern I had over the conflict. Okay, so
(13:52):
it sounds like an evolution. I mean perhaps if if
you did not offer the position at age thirty five,
you might have taken a different path. But at that
point was your way out? Maybe, you know, I I
don't know. You know. I think I had those moments
of revelation where I recognized the conflict and constantly reflected
how does this sit with me? Does it align with
my values? How and where should I be spending my
(14:14):
time and energy? What are my options? You know, that
opening of optionality, And eventually just the right thing came
along and it happened to coincide with these feelings of
there is something more. I don't want my whole story
to be Hooters. I'm ready to to move on and
create a different chapter. You have an incredible work ethic,
Like why did you have three jobs when you were seventeen? Well,
(14:37):
the first job they layered, Um, the first job was cleaning.
I just didn't know how to quit. At that point,
I think, um, still I talk about that. Yes, yes,
So the first job was cleaning jim equipment, and that
was because we were poor and I needed UM I
needed a membership at a gym for my track and cheerleading.
(15:00):
I couldn't afford the gym membership. I had shifts. I
had to go clean the equipment, and then I got
a free membership and I could go work out. So
I kept doing that through my sophomore too, freshman, all
the way through being a senior. In tenth grade, I
layered on being a salesperson at a women's clothing store
(15:21):
in the mall because that allowed me to make money
and I needed money for a car and insurance. And
I got also a fifty discount on close and and
then I was recruited to go work at Hooters. But
I loved I needed the discount on clothes, and I
was very good at it. I made top tier commissions
because I would always surpass my minimum sales amount when
(15:42):
I was sixteen and seventeen um, and I loved it. Eventually,
when I layered in being a hostess, I started being
late for the jobs because I would layer them on
top of each other and then couldn't make it from
one to the other. And Bonnie, the general manager I
talked about who fired me, sat me down when I
was eighteen, first person ever to just treat me like
(16:03):
a legitimate adult and outside of my mom. And she
sat me down and she said, look, I love you.
You're great with people, You're awesome with your peers. But
we have a job to do and you're late two
out of four days, and if you're going to be
then we should just part ways. If you can figure
out a way to focus on this, I'd love to
give you more responsibility. And that was it. I quit
(16:28):
my my mole job. So your mom has always been
a pivotal figure in your life. Talk to us about
what happened when you were nine years old and how
that changed everything. Yeah, when I was nine, my mom
came to me and said, that's it, I'm done. We're leaving.
And what she meant was we were leaving my dad.
My dad was an alcoholic, super sweet man, but never home.
(16:52):
I was in car accidents with him, cheating, the fighting,
like all. You know, all of that, and here my
mom is with three young girls at the time, three
six and nine, and doing it all on her own
for years. This went on for years. All sides of
the family were very poor, except my dad had a
fancy job. We had a middle class lifestyle in those
(17:13):
early days. And all the people on other sides of
the family would say, you're so lucky to have a house,
You're so lucky to have two cars. You know, dealing
with the alcoholism and all the stuff that comes with
it is a small trade off. It was easy for
people to say that from the outside, and they convinced her.
She allowed herself to be to reinforce the comfort of
economic security in exchange for what was becoming a compromise
(17:37):
of our safety. And eventually just it happened, just one
day too many. You know, it wasn't some catastrophic thing.
When she told me that we were leaving, I did
not cry and I did not get upset. I looked
at her at the age of nine and said, what
took you so long? And I can only imagine what
that was like for her to receive people who are
(17:57):
close to the action in business, it's the transaction. In
this case, it's the little girl who was in car
accidents crying in her room because the parents are fighting.
The people who are closest to the action know what
the right thing to do is long before the leader does.
And but the issue is people close to the action
don't have the language to articulate the problem or the solution,
(18:19):
and they don't have the authority to do anything about it,
at least at scale. Sometimes the very reinforcement you need,
or the detail or the inspiration or the motivation to
make that tough call is right under your nose. But
you've just got to stay close to it. And um,
and so that inspired me. I became obsessed with the truth,
(18:40):
not like lies versus truth, but true truth, like people's
lived experiences. When I was ahead of the training department
at Hooters, we would have these workshops where managers and
franchise e s would come in to learn how to
run a restaurant. And on the break, I would sit
in the bathroom stall after I was done using the restroom,
so just so I could hear what the Of course
it was only the women at the time, Um, this
(19:02):
is before all gender bathrooms. I would hear their perspectives
and one would complain about the snacks, so I would
change the snacks. They would say. The music sucks. On
the breaks, I would change the music. They would talk
about somebody in the class that was distracting them, so
I would on my own pay attention in the next
session and then address it on my own, like never
using what I heard for evil, you know, only for good.
(19:24):
It was just like I just want to know because
they were more important than me, Like my true north
was their experience. And if that's true, then I can
remove the ego from whatever I hear and just like
get better and better and better and better. When I
take over businesses, I go straight to the employees. I
work with them, I write in trucks, I talked to
(19:46):
them to customers. You know that applying it very literally,
being close to the action and the transaction helps me
figure out my my compass and my roadmap for the
organization more quickly than most leaders. So you arrived at
Cinema on and obviously going into a new culture is
very hard. What was that transition for you, like as
(20:06):
a leader, and how did you get everyone to follow
you where you wanted to take everything? I mean it
was you know, it's a mall and airport based brand
or was in the heart of the recession, so sales
were in the toilet. It was sales were far worse
than than they have been now through COVID. I mean
there's just no traffic. And um, the franchisees were tired,
(20:28):
most of them mom and pop operators, as I mentioned,
and they were starting I diagnosed pretty quickly the illness
that was plaguing the company other than the recession, um
was a deficit of belief. And so I recognized that
had the business been stronger going into the recession, better
technological investment, keeping up with the brick and mortar selecting,
(20:48):
better franchise ease holding, you know, all the things you're
supposed to do just because it's good business. If that
had been going on, the brand would have weathered the
recession far better. So it wasn't going into the recession
even though the sales were decent. You know, sales can
hide a lot. Sales can be there for other reasons.
Franchises were jacking up prices, you know, they were doing
things that made it look good enough, and then when
(21:10):
the tide receded there was a demand shock. It's like, oh,
our prices are too high, we don't have good managers,
our buildings are old. You know, it just reveals all
of this. So I often joke that the private equity
firm took a chance on someone so young because they're like,
she can't make it worse shot, um I um. So
there were a few things that I did. One is
(21:31):
because the diagnosis was a deficit of belief, I needed
to lead with belief, and my belief was genuine. It's
a delicious freaking product, Like it's amazing. So many businesses
have to market their way out of an average product.
This was a delicious, world class insane not to ever
be duplicated baked good so amazing um, and that recipe
(21:54):
never changed, so it was always this amazing thing that
could and should be celebrated. So I just have to
pipe in and ask how many cinnabons you ate regularly
while you're at the company with it, like every day
or multiple times a day, Because when I'm visiting these restaurants,
I'm not going to be the asshole leader that shows
up and it's like, am I gonna eat that? You know?
(22:14):
Like I want to eat what you made, you know,
I want to taste it. I want to tell you
and I'm I'm I've got a super sweet to the
people I would tour restaurants with. The other more seasoned
executives that are more of the typical age of people
in these roles, were like, you weren't going to keel
over if you keep eating like that. I'm like, it's fine,
it's fine, it's fine. Um. But then I would go
(22:37):
eat egg whites for dinner. Balance and and so you know,
I just I believed. I went on television and said,
this is a billion dollar brand. It is, and it was,
but no one was telling the story that way, and
I used what the media wanted. The media wanted to
talk about me being a Hooters girl. They didn't want
to talk about Cinnabon, and so I was like, all right.
(22:58):
At first, I didn't love it because it's not the
company I was with anymore. Then I realized this is
the only thing that's opening the door to national media.
So I don't care why the door opens. I'm gonna
walk through it. But I'm going to find a way
to talk about Centibon. And it took probably no more
than ninety days, maybe four months for the conversations to
(23:21):
be like fifty being female and a Hooters girl and
so young, and then wedging in Centibon wherever I could.
By the end of a quarter, it was centi Bon
and then my backstory became a footnote. So I was
incredibly proud of myself for using what I brought to
the table as a person as a wedge in the
(23:42):
door to then open it to shine light on the brand,
which helped us recruit talent and recruit franchise e s
and it drove sales. And then I did Undercover Boss,
which is super risky, by the way, because you have
no editorial control. It was it was awesome, but you
filmed for fifteen days and it gets edited down to
forty two minutes. There is a lot left on the
cutting room floor. It's real. It's not scripted, but it
(24:05):
is highly edited and you don't have any control and
no preview of what it ends up being. So it's
a It was a personal risk for me that paid
off big time for the brand. So how did it
pay off for the brand? Literally? Sales? I mean like
the awareness. Every time it would air, people were going
to the locations in the malls. I saw you guys
(24:26):
on the Undercover Boss and the employees. The coolest part
was the employees were like our episodes on Our My
mom saw our episode, you know it was so I mean,
undercover Boss is profiling the boss, but so much of
the heart of it is the employees, you know, are
the employees that are a profile. And now for a
quick break, what's your personal story as an adult. We've
(24:49):
talked a lot about work in your twenties and thirties,
like what about life? Oh my god, life has been
so juicy. I I, um, you know, I'm forty two now.
I met my husband five and a half years ago,
(25:09):
and I've been an eleven year relationship before that, and
and then traveled around the world as a nineteen and
twenty year old, so my life was very very deucey.
It was awesome. I mean, I have lived such a full,
full life personal like so many all nighters I can't
even tell you. Um, And I'm just really proud of that.
(25:30):
I'm proud that I had fun. I'm proud that I partied.
I'm glad I met amazing men and women around the world,
like just so awesome. And and I had several years
which people don't talk about a lot, where I was
dedicated personally to humanitarian work all around the world. But
in particular in Eastern Africa. I was in Rwanda and
Ethiopia UM multiple times a year for years, mentoring women
(25:54):
doing work in village transformation. I think the last five
years are particularly important because they really are the season
I'm still in personally. UM. I met my husband. I
had been out of my long term relationship for six months.
He had been out of a long term relationship for
about a year. Neither of us were looking. I was like,
I'm going to have a lover on every continent and
(26:14):
I Am going to be so fabulous and it may
be a man, it maybe a woman who nes like
this is gonna be amazing, you know. I just was
so full of life and um, the openness to whatever
love or family maybe like recreated from scratch. Then I
met my husband at an event for socially minded business
(26:36):
people and we had a one night stand, so we thought,
and two months later we were proposing to each other
in two within two to three weeks, and um, two
months later he left to go row across the Atlantic
Ocean in a rowboat. He's an ultra in durance athlete
and ocean rower and I've never even heard of that.
I'm like, he came back from the row, you know,
forty five days at sea crossing the Atlantic, and a
(26:57):
few months later we tattooed our rings. We got married
burning Man that year, not even a year after we
had met, made a baby in Africa on a belated
honeymoon over the holidays. And now we have our son, Ocean,
who's a little over three, and our daughter Arrow who's
sixteen months. And all in between. There just lots of life,
(27:18):
you know, miscarriages, several health scares, unexpected surgeries, activism in
my city, my amazing city of Atlanta, my husband moving
here from New York, him changing jobs in the tech
industry and recreating his whole professional pet just you know,
just life a lot, my mom having breast cancer and
(27:38):
now five just now five years past. It just so
much um personal life. Lots and lots of life all
packed into five years. Let's begin to lighting around. What
book are you reading? I am rereading. It's about damn time.
(28:00):
It's your morning routine. Wake up before my husband usually coffee,
French Press, Ethiopian coffee, only quiet, little bit of writing.
Babies wake up around six between six thirty, get both babies.
Husband wakes up after that morning is protected for family
(28:21):
time until my toddler goes to school, no exercise. What
is your favorite TV show? Whatever my husband's watching. I'm
not a big TV person, but it's an opportunity for
us to just have neutral brain time together. We just
rewatched Game of Throats. Who leaves you starstrack? Behind the
(28:45):
scenes workers like I will never not be an awe
of people who are just like grinding it out. You know,
when we were traveling a lot every airport work pulling bags,
working the gate, I would go out of my way
to say thank you. So if they're cleaning the bathroom,
(29:06):
thank you so much for your service. I'm so grateful
for a clean bathroom. Okay, our colleague Blue Burns has
been listening. He offers our male perspective and always comes
in with our finale. What's up, hi, Cat? The way
you make people feel, I bet it's extraordinary, you know,
But but it all comes back to that one person
(29:26):
who believed in you and who didn't short change you?
Who who who? When they had the opportunity to lift
somebody up, they said cat Cold. So my question is,
have you been somebody else's bonny man? I sure, hope? So,
I mean yes, many, many, many um And what I
find is that I'm someone else's bonny to people who
(29:51):
aren't necessarily in the place to believe in themselves and
say yes in the way that I was. And and
on one hand that breaks my heart a little bit,
And on the other hand, I'm like, you're exactly the
right person to for me to have this conversation with
or to say, why don't you try this and here's
what you should think about, and don't don't respond to
(30:11):
me with the list of things you don't have or
aren't good at. Reframe it and say this is what
I'll need to be successful. Are you willing to give
that to me? And that I know and I hope
I continue that that is the that I can put
energy around that community, not the people who are already
willing to say yes. Because with all the tools and
(30:32):
all the things out here, I find that more and
more people are kind of finding their way or they're
building their own tables, which is beautiful, but rather helping
people see that they are capable of far more than
they know and giving them just a little bit of
a technique to help them step into their own light. Wow, hey, hey,
does does does Bonnie get a Christmas card, Bonnie gets
(30:52):
a phone call. What's Bonnie doing? Bonnies in Atlanta. She's
continued to be an executive in the restaurant industry over
the years. There's another one named Kimmy, who was my
first vice president at Hooters, who a story for another day.
I had an eating disorder for a period of time
when I was in my early twenties, and they noticed
and sat me down and got help, and they caught
(31:14):
it so quickly because we were so close that unlike
many who battle that whether it's body dysmorphia or bulimia
or anorexia, UM, we caught it early enough, and I
was confronted with what would be the impact and was
able to come out of that dysfunction for me in
a in a relatively quick time frame, over a matter
of months. And that's something people typically battle for a lifetime.
(31:38):
You know, these women who like had the courage and
the confidence to lead, but the humility and the curiosity
to care and be deeply involved. They are primers for
leadership to me. So to your question, I try to
pay that forward by being that at least that to others.
(31:59):
There are so many things in this interview that struck me.
I can't wait to be a listener just so I
can actually take notes. One thing was that when she said,
when you hear criticism, it's important not just to be defensive,
but to think there might be a germ of truth
in that criticism and how can I improve? I liked
that one. It was a lesson for me too. But
(32:21):
for me, the biggest takeaway was the statement that she
made that the people closest to the action know what
to do long before the leaders do. And I love that.
And she followed it up by saying it's really hard
to get the people closest to the action to trust
the leaders enough to tell them and think they'll re results.
So that just led me down this path of thinking,
how is you're building your startup with part place payments
(32:42):
to the riveter, do re create a culture where that's
what's happening, where the people close to the action trust
us enough to tell us to help us get to
the other side more quickly. And those two things are combined, right,
because if you're a leader who can't take criticism, then
people are afraid to share the truth with you. So
there is a connection between those two pieces of advice.
I also loved hearing about Bonnie and what she did
(33:05):
when Cat was seventeen and she sat her down and said,
unless you take this seriously and show up on time,
you can't stay in this job. I love how candid
she was, but also strong, I mean, and caring right,
I mean, she she that's a sign of a great leader.
She was amazing. And I know we talked about Bonnie
a lot, but to me, so I had that boss.
When I was twenty one, I was working at the
(33:26):
Carter Center in Atlanta and my boss, Laura Newman, who
I actually talked to on the phone this week. Um,
I showed up late for work my third week, and
she said to me, we take work very seriously here,
so you need to come on time. She once sent
me home because my skirt was too short, and she
was right because it was I was. I was a
senior in college. And then and then the last one
(33:46):
thing she said to me, as I messed up once,
and she said, you're gonna mess up all the time
in your career. Just own it, apologize and figure out
how not to make the same mistake again. And after that,
I was never afraid to own my mistakes and you
can get so much further, so much faster. I think
that's such a great lesson. We all screw up, right,
so you say I'm sorry. There's no one who's going
(34:06):
to be upset with you if you own your mistake
and apologize. But as soon as you're defensive, back to
defensiveness again. It's really hard to learn. So you don't
want to be that defensive person that no one can
criticize or give really good feedback to. I agreed. Thanks
for listening to What's Her Story with Sam and Amy.
(34:27):
We would so appreciate if you would leave a ree
wherever you get your podcasts, and of course connect with
us on social media at What's Her Story podcast. What's
Her Story with Sam and Amy is powered by my company,
The Riveter at the Riveter dot c o in Sam's company,
park Place Payments at park place payments dot Com. Thanks
to our producer and editor Laurel Mogulin, our podcast associate
(34:50):
Phoebe crane Fus, and our male perspective Luberns. Will you
ever run for office? You never know? Um, you know,
you never know. I get asked a lot and I
used to, you know, typical person younger. I used to say,
you know, absolutely not um, and then that evolved. I'll
always go wherever i'm is my highest and best use,
(35:12):
which I believe is the private sector, because I can
put capitalism to good work and change the face of
it and lean in. And my mind is evolved. I
do you know, I think about my husband and my family. Um.
Those who put that on the back burner for the
good of the country are angels. And I don't know
(35:34):
that I'm in that place right now. I'll do everything
that I can, which is a lot and has been
more than it's ever been as it should have been,
without putting my family at risk. So I'm not in
that place, you know where I'm like, that is the
hardest thing, that that's part of the equation. Yes, that's
not how it's supposed to how, and so I will
(35:55):
keep pushing. You're an amazing leader, and I you know,
and I truly believe, as someone who has worked in
politics and now in business, that we need a lot
of amazing business leaders in politics as well, people who
have who have worked on the restaurant floor and people
who have managed teams. And I think, you know, we
would all gain a lot I do think the Cat's point, though,
(36:16):
there is also something logistical. I mean, when you have
kids under age five, I always call it the maintenance years.
It's hardcore manual labor, and then in five or ten
years that will look very different. Yeah, But in this,
in this virtual world, I'm putting it out there. If
the administration needs something that I can help with committees projects,
(36:37):
I am all in to be helpful in any way
that is that is appropriate for me. And maybe that's
a little easier to do in twenty one, you know,
with the world that we're in.
Hi, I'm Sam Edis and I'm Amy Nelson. Welcome to
What's Her Story? With Sam and Amy. This is a
show about the world's most remarkable women, their professional and
personal journeys. Together, we'll hear from Gold medalists, best selling authors,
and leaders of the world's most iconic brands. Today, we
have Cat Cole on the show. She's spent decades as
(00:24):
an executive leader in international brands like Cinnamon, Focus Brands,
and Hooters, where she stepped into an executive role in
her early twenties. I first met Cat years ago at
the Forbes Women's Leadership Conference, and I was blown away
by her, both by her experience and her confidence. Although
I haven't met her in person, Sam, Cat and I
(00:44):
are Twitter friends, um we connected on Twitter, and she
is an iconic giver of advice in wisdom, and she's
someone I learned to listen to pretty quickly. So, Cat,
you just left a ten year stint at the Helm
of Focus Brands. What made you decide to leave, you know,
to two and a half years ago. I felt I
had done all that I could, you know, and then
(01:06):
I kind of looked around at the organization we were
in front of. Yet another acquisition, which was the acquisition
of John Majuice and the There were a few things
that sort of sucked me back in for another few years.
One was the ability to take a public company private,
and I realized that in order to set the company
up for success, even if it were just for what
is my legacy, but also things like my own financial
(01:29):
investment in the company, there was an opportunity to upgrade
many of the leaders. All the presidents of the businesses
reported into me, and the businesses needed not all of them,
but many different leaders to shepherd them through the next
few years than what the previous years had required. And
then COVID hit and that was definitely another call to lead,
(01:50):
and I was so glad that I stayed and just
leaned in. I'm so proud of the team and the
work we did. And and then you know, racial reckoning
in the country, and being a leader in a consumer
facing brand through that movement, or at least the peak
of that movement, I believe it continues on in beautiful
(02:11):
ways today was also a serious privilege. All of that
led me to a place where I thought, now really
is the time. So how did you help franchisees through COVID.
That's a whole podcast episode. I think three, just three headlines.
One would be rallying the organization to have radical focus
(02:33):
on their behalf. You know, when things are chaotic, um
we see. What we seek more than positivity is stability
and clarity. And so we just got clear we were
only focused on two things. We were not going to
talk about anything if it didn't fit under one or
both of these buckets, and that was conservation of cash
(02:53):
and protection of people. That was it. You know, that
laser focus was liberating. It's like freedom within the framework,
and so that gave people calm, It made them feel
that there's someone at the steering wheel. The second was
highly frequent communication, just staying in touch. You're not alone,
(03:13):
what's going on with you, Here's what we're seeing, you know,
what are you hearing, Here's what I'm hearing, Here's what
you should so that when things are changing so much,
just multiple times a day, touching base. And then the
third was rallying around those two points of focus and
really helping them figure out how to conserve cash. We
reduced or completely got rid of royalties and advertising fund
(03:37):
and any of their obligations to us. We then would
call all the vendors on their behalf, and you know,
everybody's got bills to pay, including the vendors, But say, look,
I know you charge a monthly fee for this technology,
and I know that's what you need to stay in business,
but our business is literally shut down, so we need
you to do whatever you can for our franchisees. So cat,
(03:59):
how do you you, in a normal world and through
COVID motivate your own team. One way is never forgetting
to keep reiterating the mission and the why just that
why can keep pulling us up out of the muck um.
The second is a regular muscle of iteration around talent.
(04:22):
I can't be in the room all the time and
and and shouldn't be. And the leaders that are fit
for tomorrow may or may not be the leaders that
are there today. And especially if a company is in
high growth, some people on the team absolutely have potential
to grow and fill many future levels, but sometimes they
(04:46):
don't have the ability to do that fast enough for
what the organization needs. And I have those conversations of
advising founders of high growth, especially in the technology sector
where it's just crazy exponential growth, where they're having to
sit down and have conversations with team members that have
been with them since day one to explain why they're
not the person that is going to get that next role,
(05:08):
but yet try to do a good job to help
them understand what their future is and why to keep
them engaged and keep the culture really strong. And other
times the right thing to do is to put that
person that isn't ready but has so many other things
to give them that opportunity, and then sometimes to help
people find their their way out. So I want to
take you back to the mid nine nineties, your seventeen
(05:30):
years old. You take on a third part time job
at Hooters. How did that job impact the course of
your life? Um, I mean radically would be an understatement
with I mean no hyperbole, you know. I I thought
it was just like what that is for most people.
It's a waitress gig. I'm saving money, I'm paying my
(05:52):
way through school. It's nights and weekends. That's it. I mean,
that's really all it was. And in less than a year,
I was helping to support locations outside of my home location.
I had worked every job in the restaurant. I've been
a cook, I've been a bartender i'd been a manager,
it became so much more. Even before it became this
(06:15):
where the international part of the story begins. I was
putting myself through school, getting a computer science as an
electrical engineering degree. I had total plans to go on
to law school and these grand visions for myself that
were close to polar opposite of what I ended up doing.
And I was really good at it with less effort
than others. And then that collided with the company happening
(06:37):
to be in a crazy growth stage and meeting existing
team members who knew a lot about the business to
take on a great deal of responsibility by helping to
you know, plant flags to launch the brand in other
countries around the world. And so when I was nineteen,
I was asked to go open the first ever Hooters
franchise in Australia. I've never been on a plane, I
did not have a passport. I'd only been out of
(06:57):
floor that couple of times in my life. I mean,
I was a small town, small town girl. I mean,
Jacksonville is a big, spread out city, but anybody who's
been their nose, it's basically a collection of small towns.
And so I went to Sydney and it was so
cool as you can imagine. I was nineteen hooters girl,
you know, divorced parents like no one of any fancy
(07:20):
career to speak of. I don't know how many people
in my family actually had ever even been on airplanes.
It felt cool, but it felt like a one time thing.
And then I was asked to go to Mexico and
launch the franchise there. And then I was asked to
go to Argentina and launch the franchise in South America.
And before I knew it, I was no longer a
member of the team. I was running the team, showing
up early, getting the groundwork laid, setting the franchises up,
(07:42):
the supply chain, the media, the hiring, and then getting
it open um. So I was running them. And I
was failing college because I was never there. So when
I was twenty, I dropped out. I say, I dropped out.
I was failing. I chose to not improve that condition,
so I dropped out. Did you catch their eye? I mean,
you have all these peers, you're the youngest one there.
(08:04):
What was it that made them say, you, cat Cole,
we want you to go to Australia and open this restaurant. Yeah,
I mean it was a team. You know, there were
others that were chosen, but it was ten out of
the whole country, and so there were a few things.
One was that I knew all the jobs, and so
if you're going to send someone far away to help
(08:24):
with the business, it's pretty efficient to have people know
multiple roles. And so I do think the fact that
I had, by happenstance, just to be helpful when somebody
quit or needed to leave their shift early. That's how
it all happened. I wasn't trying to assemble a resume
of like restaurant jobs. It's just the bartender need to
go home to take care of her kid, and the
(08:45):
cook got mad and quit, or he got fired by
the manager because he was smoking pot out back, you
know whatever it was. And I'm like, yeah, I fried
chicken wings, or yeah I'll shut down the bar. Yeah.
And it was all good for me because it was
more money, you know, more hours. It was helping me
pay for college, and I was super curious to see
if I could figure it out. Plus I'm I've always
been a really helpful person, So that's one way. The
other was I was very good with my peers. I
(09:07):
volunteered to be a trainer back in the day when
we used to go to restaurants and sit down and
sometimes the server would come over with somebody trailing behind
them like a shadow. Ultimately, I didn't get the phone call.
The corporate office doesn't have hourly employees phone numbers. They
called the store and said, who are your best employees?
Who would you recommend? And Bonnie, who was the who
(09:27):
is a former Hooters girl herself who had become a
general manager of this multimillion dollar casual dining restaurant, recommended me.
She hired me when I was seventeen. She treated me
like an adult as an employee when I was eighteen,
super soft spoken, amazing operator. All of this wouldn't have
happened if she had not recommended me. Every boss I
(09:49):
ever had in that company until I worked for the CEO,
was a woman. Everyone, and I didn't realize it at
the time. I didn't know any different. I mean, it's
it have been focused on female sex appeal and certainly
marketed towards males, but that was a That company was,
at least at the time, run largely by women at
the unit level. Moving up from within. So by the
(10:11):
time I made it to boardrooms, I wasn't trying to
figure out how to be a dude. You know. I
had seen so many different types of leadership coming from
women that reflected their style, their personality. I was emboldened
and empowered. It was like going to an all girls
business school. For a long time. I was so my
(10:32):
cup runneth over with confidence in my ability to show
up in the world, and so I didn't waste energy
on the things that so many have to spend energy on.
And now for a quick break, we have to talk
about the fact that you are this icon of women's empowerment,
but you started out at a brand known for selling
burgers using women's sex appeal totally. How do you reconcile
(10:55):
that contradiction? Yeah, I think, I mean candidly. When I
was eighteen years old, there was no conflict. I was
having a great time. We were treated with respect. People
who were in the restaurant wanted to be there. I
wasn't confronted with the very real social consequences and conflict
that I would later confront as an executive. I was
(11:18):
twenty six, I became vice president of the company. At
that time doing five million in revenue. And I remember
going to a few women's conferences when I showed up
and gave them my business card and it had this
owl on it. I could I could set my watch
by the reaction, like three to one. Oh oh. It
(11:41):
was when to your point, I started leading women's organizations
championing women's efforts that were largely connected to the restaurant industry,
of which Hooters was a participant or member, that I
really started to feel that conflict. And I'm a deeply
reflective person. So when I would feel the conflict or
or some would just challenge me directly, I get it.
(12:04):
If you're a waitress, but you could go work anywhere
as an executive, Well not really, not when you're twenty
six years old. Tell me somebody else who would have
given me those opportunities in that scope of responsibility and
sent me around the world and giving me the diversity
of experiences. And at some point, yes, that became true.
And eventually, you know, I asked myself because I was
(12:24):
challenged by someone when we opened Hooters in Salt Lake City, Utah,
and I was challenged on a radio interview by someone
who said, you know how dare you. You're a hypocrite,
you are exploiting women. And I thought about it because
I had advice from a mentor in Argentina who he said,
anytime you're criticized, assume first it's correct, and then feel
(12:45):
your reaction to it. If if your reaction is visceral,
then it and it's still no, you can at least
then shift to not debating the what and focusing on
the why. But if you consider it and you think
there's little of this that's true, but maybe there's some
of it that's true, that it will keep me from
putting my foot in my mouth and I can acknowledge
(13:06):
that there is a legitimate challenge there. And that's what
I did in that case. I thought, you know, there
is some conflict here, and I'm comfortable with acknowledging that. However,
even then I thought my pride and what I know
we've built internally, like more education for more women, like
impact scholarships and funding than any other retail company had
done up to that point. That were retail companies that
(13:29):
were far larger than us. Um all of the health
and awareness and things we did for women, and me
being one example of many, all the women who moved
up into these leadership positions. I had so much of
that information that my pride in how we did what
we did and my gratitude for everything I had received
outweighed the concern I had over the conflict. Okay, so
(13:52):
it sounds like an evolution. I mean perhaps if if
you did not offer the position at age thirty five,
you might have taken a different path. But at that
point was your way out? Maybe, you know, I I
don't know. You know. I think I had those moments
of revelation where I recognized the conflict and constantly reflected
how does this sit with me? Does it align with
my values? How and where should I be spending my
(14:14):
time and energy? What are my options? You know, that
opening of optionality, And eventually just the right thing came
along and it happened to coincide with these feelings of
there is something more. I don't want my whole story
to be Hooters. I'm ready to to move on and
create a different chapter. You have an incredible work ethic,
Like why did you have three jobs when you were seventeen? Well,
(14:37):
the first job they layered, Um, the first job was cleaning.
I just didn't know how to quit. At that point,
I think, um, still I talk about that. Yes, yes,
So the first job was cleaning jim equipment, and that
was because we were poor and I needed UM I
needed a membership at a gym for my track and cheerleading.
(15:00):
I couldn't afford the gym membership. I had shifts. I
had to go clean the equipment, and then I got
a free membership and I could go work out. So
I kept doing that through my sophomore too, freshman, all
the way through being a senior. In tenth grade, I
layered on being a salesperson at a women's clothing store
(15:21):
in the mall because that allowed me to make money
and I needed money for a car and insurance. And
I got also a fifty discount on close and and
then I was recruited to go work at Hooters. But
I loved I needed the discount on clothes, and I
was very good at it. I made top tier commissions
because I would always surpass my minimum sales amount when
(15:42):
I was sixteen and seventeen um, and I loved it. Eventually,
when I layered in being a hostess, I started being
late for the jobs because I would layer them on
top of each other and then couldn't make it from
one to the other. And Bonnie, the general manager I
talked about who fired me, sat me down when I
was eighteen, first person ever to just treat me like
(16:03):
a legitimate adult and outside of my mom. And she
sat me down and she said, look, I love you.
You're great with people, You're awesome with your peers. But
we have a job to do and you're late two
out of four days, and if you're going to be
then we should just part ways. If you can figure
out a way to focus on this, I'd love to
give you more responsibility. And that was it. I quit
(16:28):
my my mole job. So your mom has always been
a pivotal figure in your life. Talk to us about
what happened when you were nine years old and how
that changed everything. Yeah, when I was nine, my mom
came to me and said, that's it, I'm done. We're leaving.
And what she meant was we were leaving my dad.
My dad was an alcoholic, super sweet man, but never home.
(16:52):
I was in car accidents with him, cheating, the fighting,
like all. You know, all of that, and here my
mom is with three young girls at the time, three
six and nine, and doing it all on her own
for years. This went on for years. All sides of
the family were very poor, except my dad had a
fancy job. We had a middle class lifestyle in those
(17:13):
early days. And all the people on other sides of
the family would say, you're so lucky to have a house,
You're so lucky to have two cars. You know, dealing
with the alcoholism and all the stuff that comes with
it is a small trade off. It was easy for
people to say that from the outside, and they convinced her.
She allowed herself to be to reinforce the comfort of
economic security in exchange for what was becoming a compromise
(17:37):
of our safety. And eventually just it happened, just one
day too many. You know, it wasn't some catastrophic thing.
When she told me that we were leaving, I did
not cry and I did not get upset. I looked
at her at the age of nine and said, what
took you so long? And I can only imagine what
that was like for her to receive people who are
(17:57):
close to the action in business, it's the transaction. In
this case, it's the little girl who was in car
accidents crying in her room because the parents are fighting.
The people who are closest to the action know what
the right thing to do is long before the leader does.
And but the issue is people close to the action
don't have the language to articulate the problem or the solution,
(18:19):
and they don't have the authority to do anything about it,
at least at scale. Sometimes the very reinforcement you need,
or the detail or the inspiration or the motivation to
make that tough call is right under your nose. But
you've just got to stay close to it. And um,
and so that inspired me. I became obsessed with the truth,
(18:40):
not like lies versus truth, but true truth, like people's
lived experiences. When I was ahead of the training department
at Hooters, we would have these workshops where managers and
franchise e s would come in to learn how to
run a restaurant. And on the break, I would sit
in the bathroom stall after I was done using the restroom,
so just so I could hear what the Of course
it was only the women at the time, Um, this
(19:02):
is before all gender bathrooms. I would hear their perspectives
and one would complain about the snacks, so I would
change the snacks. They would say. The music sucks. On
the breaks, I would change the music. They would talk
about somebody in the class that was distracting them, so
I would on my own pay attention in the next
session and then address it on my own, like never
using what I heard for evil, you know, only for good.
(19:24):
It was just like I just want to know because
they were more important than me, Like my true north
was their experience. And if that's true, then I can
remove the ego from whatever I hear and just like
get better and better and better and better. When I
take over businesses, I go straight to the employees. I
work with them, I write in trucks, I talked to
(19:46):
them to customers. You know that applying it very literally,
being close to the action and the transaction helps me
figure out my my compass and my roadmap for the
organization more quickly than most leaders. So you arrived at
Cinema on and obviously going into a new culture is
very hard. What was that transition for you, like as
(20:06):
a leader, and how did you get everyone to follow
you where you wanted to take everything? I mean it
was you know, it's a mall and airport based brand
or was in the heart of the recession, so sales
were in the toilet. It was sales were far worse
than than they have been now through COVID. I mean
there's just no traffic. And um, the franchisees were tired,
(20:28):
most of them mom and pop operators, as I mentioned,
and they were starting I diagnosed pretty quickly the illness
that was plaguing the company other than the recession, um
was a deficit of belief. And so I recognized that
had the business been stronger going into the recession, better
technological investment, keeping up with the brick and mortar selecting,
(20:48):
better franchise ease holding, you know, all the things you're
supposed to do just because it's good business. If that
had been going on, the brand would have weathered the
recession far better. So it wasn't going into the recession
even though the sales were decent. You know, sales can
hide a lot. Sales can be there for other reasons.
Franchises were jacking up prices, you know, they were doing
things that made it look good enough, and then when
(21:10):
the tide receded there was a demand shock. It's like, oh,
our prices are too high, we don't have good managers,
our buildings are old. You know, it just reveals all
of this. So I often joke that the private equity
firm took a chance on someone so young because they're like,
she can't make it worse shot, um I um. So
there were a few things that I did. One is
(21:31):
because the diagnosis was a deficit of belief, I needed
to lead with belief, and my belief was genuine. It's
a delicious freaking product, Like it's amazing. So many businesses
have to market their way out of an average product.
This was a delicious, world class insane not to ever
be duplicated baked good so amazing um, and that recipe
(21:54):
never changed, so it was always this amazing thing that
could and should be celebrated. So I just have to
pipe in and ask how many cinnabons you ate regularly
while you're at the company with it, like every day
or multiple times a day, Because when I'm visiting these restaurants,
I'm not going to be the asshole leader that shows
up and it's like, am I gonna eat that? You know?
(22:14):
Like I want to eat what you made, you know,
I want to taste it. I want to tell you
and I'm I'm I've got a super sweet to the
people I would tour restaurants with. The other more seasoned
executives that are more of the typical age of people
in these roles, were like, you weren't going to keel
over if you keep eating like that. I'm like, it's fine,
it's fine, it's fine. Um. But then I would go
(22:37):
eat egg whites for dinner. Balance and and so you know,
I just I believed. I went on television and said,
this is a billion dollar brand. It is, and it was,
but no one was telling the story that way, and
I used what the media wanted. The media wanted to
talk about me being a Hooters girl. They didn't want
to talk about Cinnabon, and so I was like, all right.
(22:58):
At first, I didn't love it because it's not the
company I was with anymore. Then I realized this is
the only thing that's opening the door to national media.
So I don't care why the door opens. I'm gonna
walk through it. But I'm going to find a way
to talk about Centibon. And it took probably no more
than ninety days, maybe four months for the conversations to
(23:21):
be like fifty being female and a Hooters girl and
so young, and then wedging in Centibon wherever I could.
By the end of a quarter, it was centi Bon
and then my backstory became a footnote. So I was
incredibly proud of myself for using what I brought to
the table as a person as a wedge in the
(23:42):
door to then open it to shine light on the brand,
which helped us recruit talent and recruit franchise e s
and it drove sales. And then I did Undercover Boss,
which is super risky, by the way, because you have
no editorial control. It was it was awesome, but you
filmed for fifteen days and it gets edited down to
forty two minutes. There is a lot left on the
cutting room floor. It's real. It's not scripted, but it
(24:05):
is highly edited and you don't have any control and
no preview of what it ends up being. So it's
a It was a personal risk for me that paid
off big time for the brand. So how did it
pay off for the brand? Literally? Sales? I mean like
the awareness. Every time it would air, people were going
to the locations in the malls. I saw you guys
(24:26):
on the Undercover Boss and the employees. The coolest part
was the employees were like our episodes on Our My
mom saw our episode, you know it was so I mean,
undercover Boss is profiling the boss, but so much of
the heart of it is the employees, you know, are
the employees that are a profile. And now for a
quick break, what's your personal story as an adult. We've
(24:49):
talked a lot about work in your twenties and thirties,
like what about life? Oh my god, life has been
so juicy. I I, um, you know, I'm forty two now.
I met my husband five and a half years ago,
(25:09):
and I've been an eleven year relationship before that, and
and then traveled around the world as a nineteen and
twenty year old, so my life was very very deucey.
It was awesome. I mean, I have lived such a full,
full life personal like so many all nighters I can't
even tell you. Um, And I'm just really proud of that.
(25:30):
I'm proud that I had fun. I'm proud that I partied.
I'm glad I met amazing men and women around the world,
like just so awesome. And and I had several years
which people don't talk about a lot, where I was
dedicated personally to humanitarian work all around the world. But
in particular in Eastern Africa. I was in Rwanda and
Ethiopia UM multiple times a year for years, mentoring women
(25:54):
doing work in village transformation. I think the last five
years are particularly important because they really are the season
I'm still in personally. UM. I met my husband. I
had been out of my long term relationship for six months.
He had been out of a long term relationship for
about a year. Neither of us were looking. I was like,
I'm going to have a lover on every continent and
(26:14):
I Am going to be so fabulous and it may
be a man, it maybe a woman who nes like
this is gonna be amazing, you know. I just was
so full of life and um, the openness to whatever
love or family maybe like recreated from scratch. Then I
met my husband at an event for socially minded business
(26:36):
people and we had a one night stand, so we thought,
and two months later we were proposing to each other
in two within two to three weeks, and um, two
months later he left to go row across the Atlantic
Ocean in a rowboat. He's an ultra in durance athlete
and ocean rower and I've never even heard of that.
I'm like, he came back from the row, you know,
forty five days at sea crossing the Atlantic, and a
(26:57):
few months later we tattooed our rings. We got married
burning Man that year, not even a year after we
had met, made a baby in Africa on a belated
honeymoon over the holidays. And now we have our son, Ocean,
who's a little over three, and our daughter Arrow who's
sixteen months. And all in between. There just lots of life,
(27:18):
you know, miscarriages, several health scares, unexpected surgeries, activism in
my city, my amazing city of Atlanta, my husband moving
here from New York, him changing jobs in the tech
industry and recreating his whole professional pet just you know,
just life a lot, my mom having breast cancer and
(27:38):
now five just now five years past. It just so
much um personal life. Lots and lots of life all
packed into five years. Let's begin to lighting around. What
book are you reading? I am rereading. It's about damn time.
(28:00):
It's your morning routine. Wake up before my husband usually coffee,
French Press, Ethiopian coffee, only quiet, little bit of writing.
Babies wake up around six between six thirty, get both babies.
Husband wakes up after that morning is protected for family
(28:21):
time until my toddler goes to school, no exercise. What
is your favorite TV show? Whatever my husband's watching. I'm
not a big TV person, but it's an opportunity for
us to just have neutral brain time together. We just
rewatched Game of Throats. Who leaves you starstrack? Behind the
(28:45):
scenes workers like I will never not be an awe
of people who are just like grinding it out. You know,
when we were traveling a lot every airport work pulling bags,
working the gate, I would go out of my way
to say thank you. So if they're cleaning the bathroom,
(29:06):
thank you so much for your service. I'm so grateful
for a clean bathroom. Okay, our colleague Blue Burns has
been listening. He offers our male perspective and always comes
in with our finale. What's up, hi, Cat? The way
you make people feel, I bet it's extraordinary, you know,
But but it all comes back to that one person
(29:26):
who believed in you and who didn't short change you?
Who who who? When they had the opportunity to lift
somebody up, they said cat Cold. So my question is,
have you been somebody else's bonny man? I sure, hope? So,
I mean yes, many, many, many um And what I
find is that I'm someone else's bonny to people who
(29:51):
aren't necessarily in the place to believe in themselves and
say yes in the way that I was. And and
on one hand that breaks my heart a little bit,
And on the other hand, I'm like, you're exactly the
right person to for me to have this conversation with
or to say, why don't you try this and here's
what you should think about, and don't don't respond to
(30:11):
me with the list of things you don't have or
aren't good at. Reframe it and say this is what
I'll need to be successful. Are you willing to give
that to me? And that I know and I hope
I continue that that is the that I can put
energy around that community, not the people who are already
willing to say yes. Because with all the tools and
(30:32):
all the things out here, I find that more and
more people are kind of finding their way or they're
building their own tables, which is beautiful, but rather helping
people see that they are capable of far more than
they know and giving them just a little bit of
a technique to help them step into their own light. Wow, hey, hey,
does does does Bonnie get a Christmas card, Bonnie gets
(30:52):
a phone call. What's Bonnie doing? Bonnies in Atlanta. She's
continued to be an executive in the restaurant industry over
the years. There's another one named Kimmy, who was my
first vice president at Hooters, who a story for another day.
I had an eating disorder for a period of time
when I was in my early twenties, and they noticed
and sat me down and got help, and they caught
(31:14):
it so quickly because we were so close that unlike
many who battle that whether it's body dysmorphia or bulimia
or anorexia, UM, we caught it early enough, and I
was confronted with what would be the impact and was
able to come out of that dysfunction for me in
a in a relatively quick time frame, over a matter
of months. And that's something people typically battle for a lifetime.
(31:38):
You know, these women who like had the courage and
the confidence to lead, but the humility and the curiosity
to care and be deeply involved. They are primers for
leadership to me. So to your question, I try to
pay that forward by being that at least that to others.
(31:59):
There are so many things in this interview that struck me.
I can't wait to be a listener just so I
can actually take notes. One thing was that when she said,
when you hear criticism, it's important not just to be defensive,
but to think there might be a germ of truth
in that criticism and how can I improve? I liked
that one. It was a lesson for me too. But
(32:21):
for me, the biggest takeaway was the statement that she
made that the people closest to the action know what
to do long before the leaders do. And I love that.
And she followed it up by saying it's really hard
to get the people closest to the action to trust
the leaders enough to tell them and think they'll re results.
So that just led me down this path of thinking,
how is you're building your startup with part place payments
(32:42):
to the riveter, do re create a culture where that's
what's happening, where the people close to the action trust
us enough to tell us to help us get to
the other side more quickly. And those two things are combined, right,
because if you're a leader who can't take criticism, then
people are afraid to share the truth with you. So
there is a connection between those two pieces of advice.
I also loved hearing about Bonnie and what she did
(33:05):
when Cat was seventeen and she sat her down and said,
unless you take this seriously and show up on time,
you can't stay in this job. I love how candid
she was, but also strong, I mean, and caring right,
I mean, she she that's a sign of a great leader.
She was amazing. And I know we talked about Bonnie
a lot, but to me, so I had that boss.
When I was twenty one, I was working at the
(33:26):
Carter Center in Atlanta and my boss, Laura Newman, who
I actually talked to on the phone this week. Um,
I showed up late for work my third week, and
she said to me, we take work very seriously here,
so you need to come on time. She once sent
me home because my skirt was too short, and she
was right because it was I was. I was a
senior in college. And then and then the last one
(33:46):
thing she said to me, as I messed up once,
and she said, you're gonna mess up all the time
in your career. Just own it, apologize and figure out
how not to make the same mistake again. And after that,
I was never afraid to own my mistakes and you
can get so much further, so much faster. I think
that's such a great lesson. We all screw up, right,
so you say I'm sorry. There's no one who's going
(34:06):
to be upset with you if you own your mistake
and apologize. But as soon as you're defensive, back to
defensiveness again. It's really hard to learn. So you don't
want to be that defensive person that no one can
criticize or give really good feedback to. I agreed. Thanks
for listening to What's Her Story with Sam and Amy.
(34:27):
We would so appreciate if you would leave a ree
wherever you get your podcasts, and of course connect with
us on social media at What's Her Story podcast. What's
Her Story with Sam and Amy is powered by my company,
The Riveter at the Riveter dot c o in Sam's company,
park Place Payments at park place payments dot Com. Thanks
to our producer and editor Laurel Mogulin, our podcast associate
(34:50):
Phoebe crane Fus, and our male perspective Luberns. Will you
ever run for office? You never know? Um, you know,
you never know. I get asked a lot and I
used to, you know, typical person younger. I used to say,
you know, absolutely not um, and then that evolved. I'll
always go wherever i'm is my highest and best use,
(35:12):
which I believe is the private sector, because I can
put capitalism to good work and change the face of
it and lean in. And my mind is evolved. I
do you know, I think about my husband and my family. Um.
Those who put that on the back burner for the
good of the country are angels. And I don't know
(35:34):
that I'm in that place right now. I'll do everything
that I can, which is a lot and has been
more than it's ever been as it should have been,
without putting my family at risk. So I'm not in
that place, you know where I'm like, that is the
hardest thing, that that's part of the equation. Yes, that's
not how it's supposed to how, and so I will
(35:55):
keep pushing. You're an amazing leader, and I you know,
and I truly believe, as someone who has worked in
politics and now in business, that we need a lot
of amazing business leaders in politics as well, people who
have who have worked on the restaurant floor and people
who have managed teams. And I think, you know, we
would all gain a lot I do think the Cat's point, though,
(36:16):
there is also something logistical. I mean, when you have
kids under age five, I always call it the maintenance years.
It's hardcore manual labor, and then in five or ten
years that will look very different. Yeah, But in this,
in this virtual world, I'm putting it out there. If
the administration needs something that I can help with committees projects,
(36:37):
I am all in to be helpful in any way
that is that is appropriate for me. And maybe that's
a little easier to do in twenty one, you know,
with the world that we're in.
Hosts And Creators
Samantha Ettus
Amy Nelson
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