“When I come across someone else that loves development as much as I do, we can spend hours talking,” says Clare Nishikawa, founder and CEO of Beyond Development Group (BDG). “But if I can then help create something – a strategy, a plan, or a new restaurant – I’m a pig in mud.”
Seeing the passion for developing restaurants and brands run through the veins of a spearhead like Nishikawa is inspiring beyond measure. Still, upon meeting in person, the change-maker claims it’s always her accent that’s the conversation starter.
“I am not what you’d expect,” she says, “I am a British woman with a Canadian husband and Japanese surname, living in my 16th house – this time in Texas – running my own real estate development business.”
After unearthing her passion for people and problem-solving during her 14 years as a Group Director for Nielsen {an information, data, and market measurement firm}, one of her Nielsen clients saw her potential to make the giant leap into real estate development for Pizza Hut Canada.
Fast forward to 2016, Nishikawa, now the Director of the franchise for Pizza Hut US, experienced a surge in productivity that resulted in her being responsible for the opening of over 500 new franchise restaurants across the United States.
And it doesn’t stop there. Clare Nishikawa was also instrumental in establishing a market planning process, consulting with around 40 franchisees, accounting for over 3,000 restaurants, and developing their personalized 10-year asset strategy.
However, it was here that Nishikawa soon came face-to-face with a significant gap in dealing with “franchisee’ development resources and the challenge her franchisees would have in employing a full-time Chief Development Officer and development team.
“It can be challenging to balance what brands and franchisees want to achieve. We spent a lot of time working with the actual data and found a way of getting us all on the same page,” Nishikawa explains.
You see, “if you are very small, you can do it yourself. You’re only managing one or two stores, and you can build another. But, if you have over 300 stores, you probably have a development team. But there is a gap between ten to 300,” she continues.
“They don’t need a development person daily. They don’t need the weight of it. They often use CEOs to negotiate leases. They use operators to find sites or to manage the construction. But that means you’re distracting people from what they’re supposed to be doing daily. So you can choose distracting people or having a heavy GNA for development.”
Looking at it from the franchisor’s perspective, she also saw regular frustration at the corporate level when the best-laid plans and franchisee development agreements fell short of delivery.
So, in an attempt to change this narrative, through hard work, determination, and initiative, Clare Nishikawa and her comrades in Frisco, Texas, formed a united front with a mission to impact the US positively by enhancing America’s retail and restaurant world.
Enter: her secret weapon Beyond Development Group. From surviving to thriving, her business opened during the 2019 pandemic – and flourished.
Today, BDG allows franchisors and franchisees to hire on-demand development expertise in a consultancy role so that organizations can continue focussing on operating their business. At the same time, BDG takes care of development objectives.
“What we do is come in and be the development team for anybody that needs it, whether it is on a part-time or short-term basis,” explains Nishikawa. This allows us to “address the immediate needs within the world’s largest pizza chain, and subsequently those same issues plaguing other retail concepts.”
These objectives include new build, relocation, site modeling, demo, site prep, and more.
Even though their clients may need more in-house experience and dedicated real estate development resources, as a smaller organization, BDG can help. By fully integrating itself into any organization, they provide direction and execution at very reasonable costs.
But what’s turning heads a further 90 degrees is the tsunami of ripple effects Clare Nishikawa is currently having on the restaurant and retail industry in America.
“I think the number of brands and stores we’re going to impact this year will be huge,” explains Nishikawa. “Molly and I, in this organization, are running 60 to 80 projects right now. And so two of us are running about 45 Pizza Hut projects, about 15 Jimmy Johns, and about 15 Dickey’s. We’re also running three Long John Silvers, and nine Sonics, both new builds and remodels.”
Prominent investors are already recognizing BDG for the work done in the NPC bankruptcy resale of 1,200 PH restaurants and, in 2022, opened up eight new Pizza Huts and two new Dave’s Hot Chickens.
With more and more locations uprising, it makes for thousands – heck, millions more job opportunities. For every store built, a minimum of 25 to 50 new employees enter the space.
Not to mention providing access for consumers to brands that towns and cities would only sometimes have. She continues, “but the way that we’re achieving that is different from what anybody else is doing. We’re also educating people.”
For Nishikawa, collaboration is everything. And being a small organization, the team at BDG has already created a culture where they share their experiences. After acknowledging how important her strengths played in a time when she felt significant imposter syndrome, Nishikawa vowed to create a space where her team and extended workforces could connect, conquer and thrive.
In fact, one of the strategic and visionary leader’s plans is to create seminars for other development managers to learn more and for them to be able to share their knowledge across the different teams.
After unexpected twists and turns, one thing in Clare Nishikawa’s life remained constant – she consistently achieved breakthrough results across multiple local and global roles within the restaurant and consumer packaged goods industries.
And her accomplishments so far continue to drive the leading expert’s sales and brand expansion. With a “breadth of experience in development, client management, marketing, communications, analytics, and asset strategy,” – BDG truly is America’s number one development consultant franchisors and franchisees have been searching for.
For more information on expert Clare Nishikawa’s impact, visit Beyond Development Group. Or tap into their LinkedIn to connect with a team who values your needs.
