TANIA Waldron-Gooden, the CEO-designate of Island Grill, said staff development will be her key objective when she takes over the top position in the quick service restaurant (QSR) chain on May 1. Waldron-Gooden replaces founder and CEO Thalia Lyn in the family owned business and has been charged with the task to taking the entity to the next level of growth.

But, unlike most CEOs, Waldron-Gooden who spent most of her working life in the financial sector — a stint which would easily leave anyone thinking that the pursuit of profit would be her primary goal — said while that is important, her focus will be on making the lives of the company’s 750 employees better.

“We want to pursue team development,” Waldron-Gooden told the Jamaica Observer in her first interview since the announcement in March that she will be replacing Thalia Lyn in the role. “We have to let the staff know that Island Grill is not just a job, it can be a career,” Waldron-Gooden continued as she noted that she did not start with how to make the company more money. “We want to be an employer of choice. We also want to be flexible and agile.”

“Our staff has to know that we are privileged to have them — and we are not just saying that; it’s who we are,” Thalia chipped in.

The thrust to increase the focus on staff is, however, not one being pursued solely by the new CEO but comes from the core management team at Island Grill which, apart from Thalia and Tania, include Michael Lyn, the chief innovation officer, and Denise Lyn the chief operating officer. The resolve was strengthened at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What we learnt as a family was that the strength of our team got us through,” Michael told the Business Observer. “The pandemic allowed us to rethink our core processes — and we are starting with our people,” Denise added. The company plans to get its team certified “the Island Grill way”, but much of what is to happen when Thalia steps down is to be formulated in the next three to six months.

“We want to grow in a certain way. We are not just going to build stores,” Michael said about the trajectory of the company.

Expansion

For Waldron-Gooden that means the company must get operationally efficient. The plan is to embark on a total business process re-engineering.

“Of course, Thalia would have brought her manuals,” Waldron-Gooden said in reference to plans that have been made but are yet to be executed for the company. She said those will be reviewed for implementation.

“We are talking about new menus and how we get [new] stores across Jamaica. We’ll also be looking at how we grow regionally and internationally, eventually,” Waldron-Gooden added while staying away from timelines.

For now she said a new store is to be opened on Brunswick Avenue in Spanish Town, St Catherine, in June. Another one is planned for White River, St Ann, for which “the paper work was recently submitted”. The requirements for new store locations must include a drive-thru, Thalia said, unlike the days “when I just put a store anywhere I get a space.”

There are also plans to raise additional capital for the company, and though Waldron-Gooden’s past in working with companies to list on the Jamaica Stock Exchange brings the natural question about listing Island Grill as well, the company was non-commital as to the type of capital it intends to raise.

“In the next three to six months we are going to lay out our three-to-five-year strategy on paper and present it to the board,” Waldron-Gooden added.

Of course, Tania taking the reins comes as Thalia Lyn steps down from the company she started in 1991 with a single store at Twin Gates Plaza on Constant Spring Road in St Andrew. That store was once the best selling location, but it has now been eclipsed by the outlet at the Boulevard Supercentre off Washington Boulevard in St Andrew.

“The other two big competitors are in that plaza, but we do well there and its now our number one store. The sales at that store is higher at Boulevard, but the customer transaction at Twin Gates is higher,” Thalia said. The Twin Gates location once opened throughout the nights, but that was stopped during the pandemic. However, as night-time events return, the company said it is already evaluating and will soon add a third shift to cover the night demand, mainly from partygoers looking for a late night or early morning meal.

But those concerns will not be on Thalia’s head as much as it is now.

Stepping down

“I’m transitioning from the everyday operations because there are so many things to do we had to bring on additional talent,” Thalia told the Business Observer. I want to focus on some of the things that I haven’t been able to do, like focus on chairing the NCB Foundation, and I am also part of the Mustard Seed Communities,” she continued.

When she demits office as CEO at the end of this month, Thalia will remain on the board “and will pop in from time to time, but I won’t get in Tania’s way”. What she said she won’t miss is getting up for 8 am meetings.

“My mother is at a stage in her life when the daily operations is for somebody else,” Michael pointed out. He said though Island Grill is a family business, choosing Waldron-Gooden for the next CEO, instead of himself or his wife, was easy.

“We are a family organisation and we are self-aware to know what we know and what we don’t know, and I think when you recognise skills that can help a company become sustainable, you pursue it,” Denise said. “When you work with somebody during the most difficult times you really get to understand their values,” she continued.

As COO Denise would have been shoo-in to take over after Thalia but, along with her husband, chose Waldron-Gooden.

“It was Denise who came to the conclusion [of] why advertise when the talent is there,” Thalia added. “We have enough talent to support her in her new role. I have shop sense, she has elevated financial sense.”

But the company came close to the brink at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I was even wondering if we were going to survive. We came close to the edge, except [for the fact that] we have good partnerships with the banks. I was able to go in and renegotiate and they gave us moratoriums of our loans. They restructured some of our loans for us, plus I had a little war chest and that helped us through the pandemic,” Thalia added. “I’ve been through Finsac and I thought after that I could go through anything,” she started saying as her voice trailed off.

Michael said seeing the stress his mother underwent during that time led him to convince her that it is time to step aside.

Moving forward, the company will added new staff. So far a quality assurance personnel and risk and safety manager has been added. Denise herself will transition to a new role, chief business officer, as soon as a new COO is found.

For Waldron-Gooden, who readily admits she knows nothing about running a restaurant, her plan is to rely on the team around her.

“There are going to be challenges that I am not accustomed to but what I believe [in] fundamentally is team. The team around you must support your weaknesses — and I think I have that. And if we don’t have it, we are already recruiting and doing changes among the executive team.”

And for the family, the aim is to have the business surviving long into the future.

“There is enough data out there which shows family businesses don’t last,” Michael noted.

“What our responsibility is, is to take this family heirloom that my mother has presented to us and ensure that it survives longer than myself.

“We can always open more and more stores, but during the pandemic when we saw the strength of our team in our people [we concluded that] we are no longer going to consider employees as a commodity, where they are just bodies we employ. Our biggest mission is how do we add value to our internal team and grow the company. That is actually how we are going to grow Island Grill, and to me that is innovation. That is rethinking the process.”