Franchise Update Magazine Issue III, 2016 | Page 16

ceoprofile

BY KERRY PIPES

THEY BOUGHT THE BRAND!
Two Capriotti’s franchisees now own the company

A

shley Morris and childhood friend
Jason Smylie were not afraid to
take on the world when they
graduated from college in their early 20s.
While attending the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) both had been
such raving fans of Capriotti’s Sandwich
Shop that they broke an apartment lease
to move closer to a store.
Morris began as a financial advisor
at Wells Fargo and Smylie as a software
engineer at Bechtel Nevada before they
purchased a Capriotti’s in 2004. Four years
later, they assembled an investor group
and bought the whole company from
Lois and Alan Margolet, who founded
Capriotti’s 40 years ago in Wilmington,
Del. Today, Morris is CEO and Smylie
is president—and that youthful passion,
which continues today, is one of the cornerstones of their success.
Morris says his experience on both
sides of the franchise fence has given him a
balanced perspective of both the franchising model and the Capriotti’s system. His
own background as a franchisee provides
“street cred” with current franchisees as
well as with prospects, and is a powerful
advantage as he leads the brand.
To gain insights and buy-in across the
system, Morris relies on meetings, testing,
and focus groups with franchisees. He’s
used that approach to make changes with
existing systems and products. And because
franchisees know where he’s coming from,
he’s able to implement change with their
approval and support. Combining a buyin approach with franchisees, technology
to accelerate both productivity and profit,
and training tools that help squeeze every
NAME: Ashley Morris
TITLE: President, CEO
COMPANY: Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop
UNITS: 106
AGE: 36
FAMILY: Married with 2 boys, 5 and 3

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dollar of profitability possible from each
store has paid off in increased quality and
efficiencies across the system—good for
both franchisor and franchisees.
Of course, Morris has faced his challenges—notably when qualified candidates
dried up for a time in the late 2000s—but the
numbers have been looking positive lately.
Currently, the brand has 106 units with 15
more in the pipeline, and Morris hopes to
have a total of 250 units open by 2020.
He sees both the brand and the economy motoring along at a healthy clip these
days. “There’s access to capital markets
now,” he says. “You can go into a bank and
borrow to open and run a business. For a
long time you couldn’t do that.”
As for the crowded sandwich market
space, Morris believes Capriotti’s will continue to differentiate itself with the very
thing he fell in love with in the first place:
the food. “The food is the difference,” he
says. “It’s what we do with our product.
We operate in a niche. We are the better
sub sandwich.”

Leadership
What is your role as CEO? To be the visionary of the company first and foremost.
In addition, I am involved in company
strategy, setting the vision and mission,
big decisions and ideas, managing large
relationships, and R&D.
Describe your leadership style. I lead
by example and make sure to incorporate
lots of fun along the way! My focus is
constantly trying to simplify the organization, and to delegate to the greatest team
in the industry!
What has inspired your leadership style?
The book Traction by Gino Wickman and
working for people where I didn’t respect
their leadership style.
What is your biggest leadership challenge? Making the hard people decisions.
How do you transmit your culture from

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