Joe Lutz

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Senior Franchise Consultant
iFranchise Group, Inc.

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Area of Expertise

Strategic Franchise Development and Business Planning:
Strategic Planning, Franchise Development

With over 30 years’ executive franchising experience in the food, beverage, and retail industries, Joe Lutz has proven himself to be a solutions-driven individual known for the ability to energize businesses with compelling strategic vision.

As Chief Operating Officer and Chief Development Officer for Long John Silver’s, the largest quick-service franchised seafood company in the world, which operates over 1250 restaurants in the United States, Canada, and Asia with system sales of $700 million, Mr. Lutz provided strategic and tactical leadership for all field franchise support.  Additionally, he was responsible for franchisee compliance and improvement programs, opening of new locations, and recruiting new franchisees in US, Asia, and India.

In his more than 13-year tenure with international hospitality giant, HMSHost, Mr. Lutz excelled in overseeing both traditional and unique concepts in malls, motorways, and airports. As Senior Vice President of the Western Region for Airport Food & Beverage, he worked closely with over 200 national and local food and beverage concepts.  In this position, Mr. Lutz also managed $770 million in annual revenues, developed new business in 14 states, opened 102 complex, culinary-based concepts in 14 months, and increased sales 48% over the span of two years.

As Chief Operating Officer for Bean Sprouts, Mr. Lutz grew a small start-up from two cafés in California and expanded to 23 company-owned and licensed locations nationally.

Mr. Lutz has additional franchise expertise gained from his experience as Sr. Vice President of Operations for Cinnabon and Director of Corporate Operations for Taco Bell.  He engineered significant growth of company and franchise operations, innovated assessment and support systems, and successfully executed national rollouts of new products for over 2,500 stores.

Mr. Lutz also has a thorough and personal understanding of franchise operations from a hands-on standpoint. He and his wife currently own a Fast Signs franchise and as such, understand the unique needs of franchisees.