At just 40 years of age, Ella Bache’s Karen Matthews is one of Australia’s younger chief executives and is charged with taking the established brand into the future.
Before joining Ella Bache in 1999, Ms Matthews was international vice-president of fashion house Ferro Designs.
She also worked as a marketing manager for fashion and accessories at Myers for several years.
At the Franchise Council’s women in franchising event in Adelaide last week, Ms Matthews said Ella Bache’s products had been available in Australia for almost 50 years when the decision was made to franchise.
Awarded the PricewaterhouseCoopers Franchise Woman of the Year for 2007, Ms Matthews has taken calculated risks to improve Ella Bache’s sales and profit since joining the company.
She said moving to a franchise system had been a long process for the company, now in its eighth year of transition.
Growing a franchise should be a constant process of ‘evolution and sometimes revolution,’ she said. Read more.
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