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Drum Roll: Being Authentic
Church's CMO keeps it real — and profitable.
by Lucy Soto
July 1, 2008
F
arnaz Wallace is not your typical powerhouse in a suit. Yes, she wears chic suits. Yes,
she is a powerhouse. But there's not much typical about her.
Wallace, who moved to Louisiana's Cajun country from Iran at the age of 14, is a little
different from what one might expect from an executive vice president and chief marketing officer
for Atlanta-headquartered Church's Chicken. She took the helm nearly four years ago,and today,
Church's is experiencing its fifth consecutive year of same-store sales growth - a vital measure of
how well a restaurant company is connecting to, keeping and growing its customer base.
Church's Chicken began as
a family-run business 56 years ago,with its first tastes of Southern-style chicken served up in a
San Antonio,Texas, restaurant.The Church family was bought out in 1968,and the company went public
a year later.In 1992, AFC Enterprises moved the headquarters to Atlanta. And three and a half years
ago, AFC sold it to Atlanta private equity firm Arcapita.
Church's has more than 1,600 locations worldwide. Its sales exceed $1 billion, and the
company is racing to expand to 2,500 stores worldwide by 2010. Under the name Texas Chicken, the
company is making a giant push into Russia and India, and entering Middle Eastern markets.
Wallace is a crucial link in that expansion. She has to find out just what will attract those
current and future customers.
Speak to Wallace for more than five minutes and you get a clear sense of the 45-year-old's
philosophy for success: authenticity.
"At the end of the day, one of the things I've really discovered is in order to be successful
you have to be authentic. And that state of authenticity allows you to be creative and
productive," she says, laughing that she doesn't wear hose, is known to put purple in her hair and
has a few undisclosed tattoos.
"Diversity translates into numbers. Inclusion and diversity translates into bottom line
profits for companies. Once you prove that and you gain the respect, love will follow. And it
doesn't matter if I have a Prada suit or tattoos or if they both go together.
"I'll be absolutely honest, if we didn't deliver the results, didn't deliver the numbers,
everyone would pick on everything I do, from hairstyle to the way I dress, to the way I talk, to
the way I run my department. ... I'm not this irreverent teenager that says 'I am who I am, take it
or leave it.' I deliver results."
Her entire marketing team reflects that style, says Jon Ritt, director of consumer research.
He praises Wallace for not being the "female clone of the uptight, white businessman." She has her
own style and lets her employees have theirs.
"It's very open and eclectic," he says. "I'm a 60-plus-year-old, gay white guy -[Wallace] has
a very multicultural department, which you need when you have a multicultural customer base."
For Wallace, authenticity has been a hallmark of how she wanted to treat her customers and
present the Church's brand.
"Not a whole lot of marketers like to tell the story about lower-income, multicultural
customers," she says. "I didn't mind that at all. In fact, I took a whole lot of pride in embracing
our customers and positioning them as aspirational and smart."
Urban marketing transcends geography and demographics, she says, pointing to a recent YouTube
video of a 7-year-old Iranian boy rapping in Farsi. It's a generational thing.
The company's CEO, Harsha V. Agadi, says Wallace's marketing formula has been just the recipe
Church's needed.
"Farnaz consistently delivers a brand-centric vision that offers distinct insight into
Church's urban, multicultural customer base," he says. "Her keen perception of Church's authentic
brand personality and heritage coupled with her fanatical focus on our value proposition has given
the company a competitive advantage in the marketplace."
For Wallace, the focus on diversity, inclusion and authenticity isn't just a set of clever
marketing phrases. She says it speaks to how she lives her life.
"So, while everyone is trying to be exciting and sexy and go over to the suburbs and cater to
the higher income suburbanites, I took a different approach. I said, 'We're good right where we
are. We are proud of the neighborhoods we serve.' ... I'd rather completely differentiate and
become true to the essence of the brand and become really proud. That's the core essence of
my leadership personality."
That personality is fashioned in part from the immigrant experience and from learning from
four strong women. The third of three girls, she and her sisters grew up with their mother in
Louisiana. Her father died when she was young.
"I blended right in with the Cajun girls," she laughs. "I thought moving to the United States
everyone was going to look like Farrah Fawcett because I was watching Charlie's Angels. Guess what?
They all looked like me. ... They're all short and dark, with a bad accent. That was diversity
lesson number one. We can't stereotype the West. They don't all look like Farrah Fawcett."
After college she moved to Dallas and lived there for 20 years. At Church's, she
started at the ground floor, going "where the gunshots were," she jokes, as a field marketing
manager. She then moved to regional director, then to national director and vice president. She
trained new CMOs and decided to take her own shot at the job after Arcapita bought the company.
That experience rising through the company, says marketing vice president Marc Butler says,
gives her an edge. "She probably understands who our customer is better than probably anyone else
here."
Wallace says her success has to do with her passion and working within her strengths.
And it's the kind of advice she gives when on the speakers' circuit or in mentoring young workers.
"You have to have passion," she says. "Find something you can stand for, something you can be
dedicated to and stand for, whether it's staying home and raising children or being in a career.
Who wants to spend half the day at something they're not passionate about and aren't good at?"
