Strategic advisor for Wendy's, Dunkin', and Subway - Georgie Thomas is taking the legendary brands to a new stage of growth in Georgia

Wendy's, Dunkin', and Subway have a new strategic advisor in Georgia - Georgie Thomas. With many years of experience in the global fast food and retail markets, Georgie aims for these legendary American brands to achieve even greater success in the local market.

He speaks to us precisely about these topics in the interview:

What motivated you to join Wendy's, Dunkin and Subway in Georgia?

In my previous role, I have known and worked with Samson (Soso) Phakadze for several years, the owner and founder of Wissol Group. I have deep respect and admiration for Soso, who is a visionary leader and has built a successful business empire in Georgia.

It was an interesting, challenging and exciting opportunity for me when Samson indicated to me that he was looking for a playbook to further transform his food business (Wendy's, Dunkin' and Subway) and take it to the next level. He wanted to capitalize on my specific expertise in strategic marketing, brand and P&L management in addition to my vast international experience over 25 years across the world.

Three great brands, a robust organization backed by strong leadership with a clear focus on future growth and to top it all – "Georgia", it's such a beautiful country! To sum up, these are my key motivational factors to take up this role.

Based on your experience with global brands, how does the " think global act local " concept work here?

In my past experience I have seen expensive-mistakes made when the "think global, act local" concept was misconstrued. Sometimes we localize the what, the when, and probably even the how in the best manner. But more importantly we tend to miss asking and answering the "why" at the beginning. Once we are clear on the "why", all the other aspects fall into place accordingly.

Sometimes we can and should act global if all the answers to these simple questions are based on clear facts, qualitative as well as quantitative insights. And of course many a times, we have to act local in a prudent manner.

In my opinion, flavor, pricing, dayparts, timing and duration of the launch adapt to Georgia; while the global standards for speed, accuracy, safety, and core brand elements stay non-negotiable.

What will the marketing look like for the company over the next two quarters, and what results should we expect?

We have completed a series of intensive strategy sessions for all the three brands – Wendy's, Dunkin' and Subway. The main objective of these were to deep-dive into the brands and the businesses and lay out a clear way-forward plan for the coming 3 to 5 years.

And I am very excited and pleased with the tremendous work put in by the team to already be working towards getting some of the plans into motion.

For each of the brands, we have revisited the current plans until the end of the year and are in the finalization stages on the specifics of the 2026 calendar.

You will definitely see a renewed focus on strategically building the core brand imagery and equity, apart from the ongoing efforts to drive sales and transactions in all the channels. In case of Wendy's, we have recently embarked on a massive brand refresh program which will connect multiple touchpoints and will continue through the whole of next year.

We are already seeing double-digit increase on transactions and average check across the brands which invariably will lead to a much stronger EBITDA.

Digital and data: app, kiosks, loyalty, dynamic menu boards, and AI forecasting - what's our roadmap, and how will it impact average check and visit frequency?

Digital and data are absolutely the core pillars required for continued success and growth. There is a lot of ongoing work to upgrade the app and the in-store kiosks and we are already seeing some fantastic results around it.

We have a super-app featuring all the three brands, in other words we have a common interface covering all three. While this is quite challenging to maintain and run at the backend, it is a great feature for the customers who get to choose from an array of options and offers across different categories.

We have recently relaunched a new n' improved version of our App and we have witnessed more than 20K downloads in a matter of few weeks. This has significantly increased the sales contribution from the App and we estimate this to grow much higher in the coming months. Because of the exclusive deals, the attractive loyalty (reward points) scheme and the sheer convenience factor; I am confident that the App usage will see a huge increase and thus will the transactions and average check.

On a similar pattern, we have also introduced an advanced version of the self-ordering-kiosk. The main objective of the new system was to have a much cleaner and easier user-interface and a seamless flow that enables upselling at every stage.

The Wissol Group is heavily invested into the world of AI and related technology. For the food brands, we are already working with an AI specialist advertising agency. In fact we have created our very own virtual "Wendy's girl" mascot, who I must admit is as good as some of our "real" influencers!

Quality of growth: beyond sales, which KPIs will define success - NPS, service speed, product consistency, unit economics?

All of the above are crucial growth parameters. Each of them play their part while being intertwined within the spectrum.

In other words, quality products, quality service, high consistency, regular innovations, relevant communication along with great overall experience will naturally lead to a high NPS score. And of course, a high NPS rating will ensure consistent growth in transactions and average check which will invariably lead to healthy unit economics.

The ultimate goal is enjoying solid unit economics with a high double digit EBITDA percentage. But beyond sales and profits, the true benchmark of success is "brand love". Can our brands command repeat purchase without the lure of an aggressive discount? This kind of unconditional brand affinity is what we are aiming for.

Yes, brand love can be captured in terms of an NPS metric, but it can also be qualitatively and quantitatively derived and measured through periodic consumer research (Brand Health Trackers) and through Google ratings, Trip Advisor ratings, Delivery Aggregator ratings etc.