A visionary leader, with 30+ years of Global experience growing brands and creating
shareholder value.
Franco is a highly sought-after executive in the global consumer products industry and
branded restaurant chains because of her ability to turnaround declining brands and
businesses. Through a focused vision and a strategic insightful approach, she continues
to successfully drive global brand, sales increase, P&L and portfolio management.
Franco brings a record of proven result including DineEquity’s IHOP brand turnaround. She joined the
company to help stem a five-year business decline. A couple of years later with a new team, new
positioning, and product development strategy in place IHOP achieved three consecutive quarters of
increasingly positive same-restaurant sales and the highest annual sales increase since 2006. The brand
increased traffic and sales for the first time after 5 years of consecutive declines, doubling the DinEquity
stock price in 2 years.
Being intrigued to work with a 100% company-owned restaurant system, privately owned, after 3 years
she accepted the position of Chief Brand and strategy officer at California Pizza Kitchen. She led all
marketing initiatives including repositioning, advertising, messaging, and culinary development for the
restaurant system as well as Public Relations and Consumer Insights. She reversed traffic declines,
beating the competitive set by 2.5 percentage points after first year. In both brands Franco developed a
thorough menu Innovation pipeline and persuasive messaging. With her strong strategic thinking and
Brand Marketing skills, and her extensive experience in restaurants, packaged foods, and beverages she
drove strong results for Burger King, Pillsbury refrigerated goods and Totino’s frozen products. When
Pillsbury was acquired by General Mills Franco was the only Marketing executive promoted to
VicePresident and Officer after the acquisition. During her time with Cereals she was awarded the VPI
for Cheerios by Wal-Mart, for her increase in sales driven by her innovation. Franco is a leader of
excellence in building cross-functional teams. She has led teams across retail, franchisee systems and
multichannel environments at Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Burger King and Ihop, by re-building broken
relationships with those franchisee systems.
Natalia launched her own Brand Marketing consulting group, BrandMark Global LLC in early 2018 and she
just accepted the position of Chief Marketing officer for McAlister’s Deli, one of the largest brands within
the Focus Brands portfolio, where she is looking forward to lead efforts to accelerate growth.
Today Franco also serves in different non-profit boards including Susan G Komen Atlanta, the Accounting
school advisory board for Kennesaw State University and the Atlanta Hispanic Chamber of commerce.
Recently she served as a Board member for The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and earlier in
her career she served to the Board of “Women Venture”. Franco was recognized by the Ad Age "Top Ten
People to Watch" in 2010, The Corporate Elite Hispanic Business Review, and received the Andy Award of
Excellence. She also was featured by the Pillsbury Latina Style Magazine with an award given to her at the
White House in DC. She was twice awarded among Top Twelve Ranking and won an Advertising Silver Effie
with the advertising work on Pillsbury’s Big Deluxe Classics and an Effie for her work on Totino’s. She was
awarded twice winner of the “Circle of Excellence” sales award business performance as well as the
“Pillsbury Excellence Award” by the Chairman for best business performance.
Natalia received a degree in Business in Bogota Colombia in 1984; she earned a graduate degree in
retailing from Universidad de Valencia in Spain and is a Harvard graduate with a C.S.S. with a graduate
degree in Business Management in 1988. She has lived in many countries where she has leveraged her
passion for food, experimenting cooking delights from all places. She has a grown son and two doodles.
Natalia.p.franco@gmail.com, cell 305 2150053,
www.BrandMarkglobal.net