An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Transforming the mindsets of our people away from financial and business goals to dreams and having this innovation principle around dream fulfillment — if we can achieve that, then the financial and business goals will come.
As a part of our series about “How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Hagan Kappler.
Hagan Kappler is the CEO of Threshold Brands, a home services company with a portfolio of brands including FlyFoe, Granite Garage Floors, Heating + Air Paramedics, MaidPro, Men In Kilts, Pestmaster Services, Plumbing Paramedics, Sir Grout, and USA Insulation.
Hagan is a seasoned business leader with experience operating billion-dollar franchise operations in residential and commercial services.
She has experience advising Fortune 500 CEOs on strategy and acquisitions, having held positions at Trane, Pratt & Whitney, Starbucks, McKinsey & Company, as well as Goldman Sachs. Hagan holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Williams College and an MBA from the Darden School at the University of Virginia. Hagan has four children and lives in Newport Beach, California.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive into the main part of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you share a bit of your “backstory” with us?
I joined Threshold Brands from ServiceMaster Brands, where I was the President for ServiceMaster Clean and Merry Maids, brands that generated over $1B in system-wide sales. We sold that business — all ServiceMaster brands — to Roark Capital. That’s where I fell in love with helping franchisees grow their businesses and improving the experience of the consumer and the customer. I also learned the value of having a private equity partner invested in the business. That’s a really fun balance for me to operate and help grow a business but also get the support and team that a private equity investor provides.
I started my career at Goldman Sachs doing investment banking and was also a consultant for McKinsey. After McKinsey, I worked for Starbucks and I have a real love for consumer-oriented brands (and coffee!).
I also am a mom with four kids which is a pretty big part of my backstory. My husband and I have been navigating our careers while also raising our kids. That’s why the end consumer at Threshold Brands resonates very strongly with me. She’s married, she has a career, she’s got kids, she’s got pets, and she needs more help around the home.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us the lesson or take away what you took from that story?
In the process of raising those four kids, there have been a lot of funny stories.
When my second child was two years old, my husband was at work and he had a big meeting that day. At the time I was working for United Technologies and I also had a presentation that day. My nanny arrived but as I was getting ready to leave the house, my son was toddling around, and it was just a freak accident — he fell and split his chin open.
I picked him up and now I’m covered in his blood. I took him to the hospital so that he could get stitched up. He was fine and I still had time to make it to my meeting, but I’m covered in blood. So I called my husband, and I said, “Can we switch places?” And he said, “Sure, no problem.” I asked him to stop by the house and pick me up some clothes and then we met halfway at a Starbucks. I gave him the baby, all bandaged up with a lollipop, and he gave me a bag of clothes and took off with our son.
I go into the Starbucks bathroom and look in the bag — keep in mind it’s been two years since I had this baby — and there’s a giant maternity dress and shoes that don’t match! Nothing fit or looked right or was at all put together. It looked like I was wearing a giant garbage bag to this meeting, but I put it on. What was I going to do? I didn’t have any other choice.
I drove to the office, delivered my presentation, and received approval for our project.
The takeaway is that I know what it’s like to have to balance the joys and the demands of home and work while progressing through a career and raising a family. I empathize with our franchise owners, our consumers and our employees. I also know that I need a strong, diverse team to ensure we represent a diverse set of experiences. And the other lesson is that it is important to laugh along the way!
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you tell us a story about how that was relevant in your own life?
The life lesson quote that has always stuck with me is something that my dad told me when I was running track in high school and college. “Shoot for the moon because if you miss, you’ll land among stars.” On the track, that meant setting really high goals because even if I missed, I’d still do well. And sometimes I surprised myself and achieved the goal, but if I set the goal too low, I would never know what I could have actually achieved.
That is a real core mission of Threshold Brands. Our mission is to open doors for franchisees, customers, and employees to pursue their dreams. I think that it’s really powerful to have a conversation with a prospective or current franchisee and say, “Hey, what’s your dream?” And “Okay, let’s figure out how you can pursue it. It’s not going to be easy, but we’re here to support you.” Why not shoot for a dream? Because even if you miss, you’ll probably still achieve great things along the way.
None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful for who helped get you to where you are?
I am really grateful to my husband. He is also a CEO of a private-equity-backed company. He and I went to business school together as a married couple and have always supported one another in our dreams. We’ve done that in both our career dreams and our family dreams. And that has shifted for each of us throughout our careers, but his support both physically — like taking care of the kids when I need to travel — and emotionally is incredibly helpful.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
I think that what makes our company stand out is that we stand for something that goes beyond business and financial success. We are looking to help franchisees achieve dreams, we’re looking for team members to pursue dreams, and I think when you start to talk about dreams and less about numbers and targets, there’s something really powerful in that notion.
The story to accompany this sentiment is one of a MaidPro franchisee. When she started, she and her husband were raising three girls. She liked to clean and was looking for a break from her kids. She offered to clean the homes of elderly church members. Word got around that she was a really good cleaner, and so she started to make a living. Her husband said, “You know, there are companies that can help you take this to the next level.” Lucky for us, she chose MaidPro and is now running a million-dollar, fast-growing business. She is an amazing leader.
It’s a perfect example of how supporting an owner’s dream of getting a little break from kids has shifted into an amazing, growing business.
Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?
We have some exciting franchise development offerings and programs that we’re working on and that we think will entice some non-traditional owners to join our team. Diversity in teams and diversity among franchisees is really important to us. In order to attract a diverse set of owners with a diverse set of experiences, we’ll need to be really creative in terms of the offerings that we have in the marketplace. We are excited to help people pursue their dreams.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I think it goes back to this theme of dreams. This is probably the time in my career when I feel like if I can help franchisees and employees achieve their dreams, then I’m bringing goodness into the world.
Transforming the mindsets of our people away from financial and business goals to dreams and having this innovation principle around dream fulfillment — if we can achieve that, then the financial and business goals will come.
What advice would you give to other business leaders to bring diversity to their teams and help their employees to thrive?
Making sure that business leaders have diverse teams with diverse experiences and that the leadership team represents your employees, franchisees, and their employees is really critical. Without those experiences, you can’t represent your customer or employee because you just haven’t had those same experiences. So you need to make sure that you’ve got voices around the table who speak from a whole host of experiences and backgrounds.
As an example, many of our company store and franchisees’ front line workers are female. If any of those team members were to go on our website and did not see themselves reflected in the leadership team, I would wonder how they would think we could best represent their needs.
What advice would you give to other business leaders about how to manage a large team?
Whether you’re managing a large team or a small team, I think that you need to know your individual team members really well. You have to know their dreams. You have to be able to listen and to make sure that you’re reflecting all of those voices and insights into the decisions that you’re making.
Overall, know people’s dreams and where they want to go, and figure out a plan to get them there, whether that’s within your existing organization or elsewhere. I think providing an environment where people feel comfortable talking about dreams has helped us make sure that we have strong and effective teams.
Is there a person in the world or in the U.S. whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why?
Gwyneth Paltrow!
She is creative, an entrepreneur and a successful businesswoman. It would be fantastic to get her advice and see if there are ways we could partner together. I think she’s helping women be successful, and she’s really interested in providing consumers with the resources they need to live better, healthy lives.
Thank you for these excellent insights. We wish you continued success in your great work.
Thank you for sharing my insights.
Hagan Kappler Of Threshold Brands On How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
