Former Church’s Chicken President Hala Moddelmog: Making the Jump from Restaurants to Nonprofit

Former Church’s Chicken President Hala Moddelmog takes her restaurant skills to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

By Maya Norris, Managing Editor -- Chain Leader, 10/23/2007

Hala Moddelmog, president and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, was one of the few women to run a restaurant chain when she was appointed president of Church’s Chicken in 1995.

Former Church’s Chicken President Hala Moddelmog no longer works in the restaurant industry. But the skills and knowledge she gained from her 12 years at the QSR have come in handy since joining Susan G. Komen for the Cure as president and CEO in September 2006. Moddelmog spoke to Chain Leader about how she applies her restaurant know-how to the Dallas-based nonprofit organization, which supports breast cancer research and education.

Why did you want to work at the Komen organization?

I ended up getting a call from a headhunter or a search firm telling me about the Komen job. And to be honest, I never really thought at all about going into nonprofit. But there was something very compelling about the Komen opportunity. And I am a six-year breast cancer survivor so had that piece of it as well.

I found it interesting that the Komen organization had a connection with the restaurant industry. Nancy Brinker founded the organization, and she was married to Norman Brinker [chairman emeritus of Brinker International and a member of Komen’s board of directors].

I think that the reason that the board was interested in me is Nancy and Norman were both on the board at the time that I was hired. They realized that with Komen having 125 affiliates around the world, it’s very similar to a franchise situation. And I think that’s the first thing that got their attention about my background.

What’s it like to shift from the corporate world to a nonprofit?

It really is not that different. At the end of the day, you’re raising revenue, you’re trying to increase revenue, and you’re trying to spend the money that you raise efficiently and invest it wisely. It’s all the same management challenges and constituent challenges.

On the other hand, it is phenomenally rewarding to know that all of your hard work eventually turns into truly saving lives. The survival rate now for breast cancer that is still localized to the breast is 98 percent, and 25 years ago when Nancy Brinker started Susan G. Komen for the Cure, it was 74 percent. So there is no doubt that the work and the effort actually does save lives.

And the other part that I’m doing here that I have not had the chance to do really in foodservice is two areas. One is public policy, which I have very much enjoyed because if we don’t change some of our public policy around health care and having women have access, we can raise all the money in the world, and it’s still not going to help complete what needs to be done.

And the other is just learning about the science. It’s really been fantastic. And the people that are the most fascinating in this world are the physician scientists. Those are the doctors that not only see patients but also do the research. And these people are just geniuses and so wonderful to get to know.

How do you use the skills you’ve gained working in the restaurant industry in the Komen organization?

One of the very specific ways is using the same influencing techniques that one uses with franchisees. Because at the end of the day, there’s always a contract. But you don’t really move things through with contracts. You move things through with relationships and because you have good, sound strategies, and you’ve tested things, and people believe in what you’re doing. And that’s completely transferable here.

The other thing is just your basic management techniques. We’re working on a new enterprise system here for our accounting and finance and technology. It’s also just using your basic marketing skills.

The other part that I’ve found really interesting and totally transferable is the brand. In foodservice, especially in a franchise situation, you certainly have your products, but the brand and what it stands for and how it motivates consumers is the driving force. And that’s the same thing with Komen. Because you are raising funds to be used to save lives, the brand is everything. So you have to protect the brand and grow the brand and use the brand strategically.

You moved up in Church’s from the marketing side, which is unusual because most people get to the top spot from the operations side. How did your marketing background prepare you for the president’s job at Church’s?

It came back to two things. The sales were very strong [11 consecutive years of same-store-sales growth]. So it gave the people involved with Church’s the confidence that a marketing person might be a good one to lead. Because if you’re driving the top line and you’ve got the people at the restaurants who know how to get it to flow to the bottom line, then you’re in pretty good shape. Wall Street looks at comps sales. Everybody looks at comp sales. So you can drive good comp sales if you understand the numbers and produce programs that allow the cash to flow to the bottom line. So when we were driving sales at Church’s, they were good sales; they were transaction-increase based. And the programs didn’t have high food costs, and they really did allow the money to drop to the bottom line.

Also marketing people in general tend to be strategy focused. So from a leadership perspective, understanding the strategy that was going to drive the whole brand was important. And part of my marketing background involved product development and product marketing. And at the end of the day when you are a restaurant company, it is a lot about the food.

And the other thing about my situation in general is I just had tremendous respect for the operators. I knew they were the ones who were going to make it happen. I knew that the last thing that you needed to do was do some annoying marketing program that they didn’t believe in and that wouldn’t drop money to the bottom line. So I think a healthy respect for operations was part of the ability to win the prize of being president of Church’s.

Do you think you’ll ever come back to the restaurant industry?

What I think would be wonderful…is to serve on one of the boards of a public restaurant company because I’d love to keep my finger in the restaurant business. But I’m very devoted to Komen at this point in my career. And there’s still so much work that needs to be done. But I do love the industry and I feel like there would be an opportunity to contribute. So I like the idea of potentially serving on a board of a restaurant company at some point. Either that or potentially serving on a board that services the foodservice industry like a distributor or something like that, because after you spend basically your whole career [in restaurants], you feel like you have ways to contribute and you’d like to help the industry be successful.