Young Ones: Jennifer Durham

Name: Jennifer Durham Rank: 16 Age: 36 Company: Checkers Drive-In Restaurants, Inc.

If Checkers just sold fries, this fanatical fry follower would probably own 25 Checkers/Rally’s instead of trekking through finance on her way to franchise development. Thankfully for the Checkers leadership team, the 800-plus-location giant sells better burgers. Jennifer Durham is perfectly happy challenging herself to discover new, innovative tactics to attract multi-unit franchisees who own multi-brand concepts. I GOT INTO FRANCHISING BY: A long-time lover of Checkers fantastic fries and one of a kind milkshakes, I started my career with Checkers 11 years ago. By a wonderful turn of events that I never anticipated, I moved from finance into franchise development a year ago and the rest, to be very cliché, is history… I LOVE FRANCHISING: Food is fun! Creating business opportunities and the American dream for entrepreneurs, well that’s just awesome. IN THE FUTURE: I’d love to be a franchisee myself someday – but in the meantime, I love providing restaurateurs and our fanatic fans with more Checkers and Rally’s restaurants DO YOUNG PEOPLE HAVE OPPORTUNITY: In some respects – the next generation of franchisees includes young people entering the franchise world as their families begin to turn over their businesses and retire. I believe this surge in succession will be refreshing for the industry as a whole. FUTURE FRANCHISORS SHOULD: Love your brand and make sure decisions and actions are true to what’s best for it daily. FUTURE FRANCHISEES SHOULD: It’s the same as franchisors. Be passionate about your brand and make decisions with its wellbeing in mind. --Nick Powills