Franchise Spotlight with Katherine LeBlanc

Kathy George, President of Spherion Staffing and Recruiting, joins Katherine LeBlanc at IFA to talk about the leadership framework that helped an 80-year-old staffing franchise outpace its competitors and its parent company in a year the industry was forecasted to contract.

Kathy walks through the 20 Mile March - the collective two-year goal structure she set the night before getting on stage at national convention - and the weekly, monthly, and quarterly communication stack that turned a shared goal into franchisee-to-franchisee accountability. She also gets candid about radical transparency as a real operating principle, the succession challenge building inside multi-generational franchise systems, and why she's had to say no to protect the brand she stewards.

If you lead a franchise brand and the gap between what HQ knows and what franchisees feel is wider than you'd like - this one is for you.

What is Franchise Spotlight with Katherine LeBlanc?

Conversations with the leaders who are actually building franchising - from the executive suite to the field. Each season explores what success looks like right now, what franchise leaders should be paying attention to, and how the best brands are delivering real returns for their franchisees. Because at the end of the day, franchisee profitability isn't just a metric; it's the whole point.

Your host, Katherine LeBlanc, brings 13 years inside franchise systems, having led marketing across six brands spanning food, wellness, beauty, and experience. She's been in the room where these decisions get made. These conversations reflect that: direct, practitioner-level, and built for franchise leaders who don't have time for surface-level takes.