Kat Cole - Leadership Lessons from Unexpected Places

Kat is an inspiring leader and operator known for leading through change, high growth and turnarounds and building brands, teams, and businesses over two decades. As President & COO at Athletic Greens, Kat focuses on driving organizational scale, accelerating business growth and global expansion, innovation, and more. During Kat's 10-year tenure at Focus Brands, most recently as President & COO, she led the company’s eight brands including Cinnabon, Auntie Anne’s, Moe’s, McAllister’s, and Jamba with over 7,000 operations globally as well as the multi-brand licensing and CPG business with over $1Billion in annual sales. Prior to Focus, Kat was Vice President at Hooters, leading the company’s global growth through franchising, training, and operations. ---- 2022 Welcome Conference Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center September 19th, 2022 ---- Years ago, we set out to create the Welcome Conference, a day where people passionate about hospitality can come together and be inspired by others who embody it each day. What started as a place for people to network, give inspiration, and share ideas has since evolved. We’ve welcomed over 90 speakers, on three storied stages in New York City — Cooper Union, The New York Times Center, and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center — that have shared their stories to over 5,000 people live and hundreds of thousands online. We believe that living a life of hospitality will have a positive impact on our culture and the stories that we collect are worthy of sharing. In fact, you can find every video since 2014 on our page.