Next IFA chairman has plans for franchisees to increase stake in franchisor companies

He’s the embodiment of a shifting balance of power over the last few years that puts many multi-unit operators on equal footing with, or in many cases several rungs above, the franchisor whose stores they buy and whose rules they follow. 

Hashim is a vocal critic of franchisors who don’t treat their franchisees as partners, and he uses his bully pulpit to say so as the rising chairman of the International Franchise Association. (When he becomes chairman in 2016, he will be one of just a few franchisees to hold the post in IFA history.) He scoffs when, at conferences, the spotlight always shines on franchisor execs and rarely on franchisees. “CEOs of brands with literally 20 stores will be keynote speakers, and in the audience are franchisees with 300 stores. And somehow that franchisor knows more?” he says. “I find it comical.”

He knows which brands he’d never touch. “You look at the boards of companies that purport to be franchisors, and you will be hard-pressed to find a franchisee anywhere. How strange is that?” he says, adding such companies often lace their disdain of franchisees throughout their management practices. “I think the industry needs to take a stronger look at the wisdom and talent of franchisees and use that.”

What’s surprising to him is how few people do their due diligence, by calling multiple current franchisees before deciding to buy. “I’ve been in 10 brands and I’ve been called probably three times” over the years, he says, by prospective franchisees.