How the Yum! Center for Global Franchise Excellence is educating the next generation of franchisees

Several single-unit franchise operators will graduate this week from a unique professional development program, created by the Yum! Center for Global Franchise Excellence at the University of Louisville. The participants are part of the Accelerating Growth, Unit Expansion track – the center’s third such cohort – and each hope to grow their leadership, using what they’ve learned as a roadmap for multi-unit expansion. For six months, the professionals have attended online classes, taken assessments and crafted a 100-day plan outlining how they would manage several restaurants in a new market.

These graduates are a testament to the center that has evolved tremendously since its inception in 2021. It now offers the aforementioned professional education certificate as well as undergraduate and graduate degrees.

“We want people to understand that the sky’s the limit in franchising,” said Yum! Center for Global Franchise Excellence Director Kathleen Gosser, who has a doctorate in Educational Leadership & Organizational Development.

So far, Gosser and her team have had the opportunity to demonstrate franchising’s unlimited potential to hundreds of students, including 650 undergraduates who have enrolled in the franchise courses.

Ten of those are attending the university with financial aid thanks to a new initiative called Yum! Scholars. Launched in fall 2025 with a $1 million endowment from Yum! Brands, the program offers Kentucky-based students financial support, by way of $1,000 each semester for up to four years, as well as mentorship and hands-on experience with franchise organizations. Currently there are five sophomores and five juniors, but in fall 2026, the program will expand to include five freshmen, for a total of 15, with the goal of 20 for a full cohort in 2027.

“The concept is they have to have some interest in franchising,” Gosser said. “But they don’t have to be a business major, and that’s the beauty of it. We allow students to explore the world of franchising because, we believe, it has real world applications.”

Mateo Barrientos, a public health major and Yum! Scholar, can already see those applications just a few months into the program.

“One of my professors and mentors was a business major before becoming a dentist, and he showed me how powerful franchising can be,” he said. “He owned restaurants and dental offices and built a life that balanced passion and independence. That really stuck with me because you can incorporate franchising into almost anything you do. Even in fields like neuroscience or dentistry, franchising teaches you how to build something sustainable and grow your passion. You need that business side to be truly successful in any field.”

While other educational franchising programs exist, the UofL College of Business in affiliation with the Center is the only one that offers certification at undergraduate, graduate and professional levels, and in 2026, the university will be the first to offer a post-doctoral degree focused on franchising. Supported by Associate Professor Denise Cumberland, who has a doctorate in Educational Leadership and Organizational Development and 20 years of experience in franchising, the PhD is an expansion of a current entrepreneurship degree with research that focuses on franchising.

“A PhD focused on franchising is rare, right? No one really has it,” Gosser said. “It’s a bit of a unicorn, but there are so many ways to use it. They could work for a franchisor in any type of capacity.”

All of this advancement has caught the attention of the International Society of Franchising, which has selected the Yum! Center to host its 40^th annual conference in 2027, timed so the program’s PhD students can present their research to attendees.

“This year, the conference was in Cyprus. Next year, it will be in Rome, so it’s a great opportunity for our students. It’s quite an honor to host scholars from around the world focused on franchising,” Gosser said.

But perhaps the greatest honor comes in the form of a recent student who’s now a franchisee. Abby Epperly graduated in the spring and just signed a contract to open a Bad Ass Coffee store with her father. Knowing that a cohort was graduating this week, she gave this advice.

“Books alone don’t prepare you like the real-life education that you get at the Yum! Center for Global Franchise Excellence,” Epperly said. “I am well equipped when I enter conversations with my franchisor and suppliers because I feel as though I’ve already had these same discussions in class.”

The center, she said, has so much that a franchisee could need at any point in their career.