Speakers

Robert Stidham is the Chief Executive Officer of Summa Franchise Consulting and is the Founder of Franchise Dynamics, a full-service franchise sales outsourcing firm. His companies currently either work with or represent a significant number of emerging to large-sized franchisors across virtually every segment of franchise category throughout the United States and worldwide. He is both the Founder of each of these companies and a current principal investor and partner in each firm.

Mr. Stidham is an accomplished franchise industry leader and executive with a proven track record of improving franchise company performance. His roles have increased franchise unit sales, revenue, and profitability while gaining market share; and expanded brand awareness for both new franchise concepts and established brands alike. He has held a variety of positions in the franchise industry across franchise leadership development, operations, consulting, and as a franchise company president. At present, Mr. Stidham is active in the International Franchise Association (IFA) serving as a member of the International Committee.

Since 1992, Robert has been involved with over 2,000 franchised business start-ups, as well as multi-unit and area-development agreements in 47 countries. Mr. Stidham has corporate experience in a variety of franchise companies including in the restaurant, business- and home-services, and retail concepts space for both smaller franchisors and major companies. He is an experienced franchise operator, has built 2 of the 25 largest service franchise companies, worked with Private Equity, been a publicly-traded franchise company President, as well as created and built one of the largest franchise consulting companies in the world.

The franchise consulting company he founded, Franchise Dynamics, is a past ‘Inc. Magazine’ 500|5000 Company and the firm has received numerous awards for its performance under his leadership. Mr. Stidham was a nominee for the Ernst and Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” (Midwest) Awards in 2013, 2014 and 2015. He has also been nominated for the IFA “Entrepreneur of the Year” award. Robert has written about various franchise topics for various national and global publications, and he has recently been interviewed for numerous media articles. Mr. Stidham is widely quoted in the franchise and business press and a sought after franchise industry author, trainer, and industry speaker.