Yum! Brands and The University of Louisville Launch Franchise Education Program Targeting Women and People of Color

Louisville-based Yum! Brands, a Fortune 1000 fast food corporation that operates leading QSR brands like KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, recently announced a new partnership with The University of Louisville to create the Yum! Center for Global Franchise Excellence, which will conduct research to develop new knowledge surrounding franchise ownership and create ways to share franchising education and news. 

According to the release, the center will also focus on recruiting and educating underrepresented people of color and women as a “pathway to entrepreneurship.”

The Yum! Center is part of the Yum! Brands’ $100 million dollar “Unlocking Opportunity Initiative,” which promotes equity, inclusion, education and entrepreneurship for employees, frontline restaurant teams and communities around the world.

“We’re proud to partner with the University of Louisville on developing a sustainable, globally scalable program that democratizes exposure to and builds knowledge of the franchising industry for all,” said Scott Catlett, chief legal and franchise officer for Yum! Brands, in the release. “Our hope is the Center will carve a path to economic opportunity and successful ownership for talented, underrepresented people while bringing diverse voices and ideas to the broader franchising community.”

The center will offer programs at the undergraduate, graduate and executive-level through the College of Business, which already includes an executive-level Franchise Management Certificate. Additionally, the center will research case studies, white papers and other work to better understand why there are lower ownership averages for underrepresented people of color and women in the franchising industry.

“Franchise ownership among underrepresented people of color and women is lower than their representation in the population,” said Kathleen Gosser, Ph.D. and executive-in-residence in the UofL College of Business. “Our goal is to uncover and reduce barriers to franchise ownership, starting with education.”

The programs will be led by both University of Louisville alumni and subject matter experts at Yum! Brands, who will provide resources, up-to-date information and “powerful industry insights on the state of franchising.”

The Center for Global Franchise Excellence is not Yum! Brands’ first initiative that focuses on equity and inclusion. The company also joined OneTen Coalition earlier this year to develop, retain and advance underrepresented talent into U.S. restaurant management, field leadership and corporate roles. According to Restaurant Dive, the company was also named in the 2021 Bloomberg Gender-Equity Index for its “efforts to advance women's equality and transparency in gender reporting.”