From College Dropout to CEO of AG1

Kat Cole grew up in Jacksonville in a family where the men drank, the money was tight and almost nobody kept a job. When she was nine her mom left her father, worked multiple jobs and fed three girls on a $10 a week food budget for three years. Kat’s answer when her mom said they were leaving: what took you so long.

She was selling jeans in a mall at 15 to help the family, started at Hooters as a hostess in high school, and by 20 the company had moved her into the corporate office to run training and openings around the world. Vice president at 26. At 32 Roark Capital handed her Cinnabon, 400 stores and $300 million in revenue, getting beaten up by the recession. She spent her first 60 days rolling cinnamon rolls, asked every employee the same three questions, launched a smaller roll, put the brand in grocery stores and tripled it to a billion dollars. COO of the parent company at 36, nine presidents and $3 billion in revenue reporting to her. Today she runs AG1.

This week I sat down with Kat to talk about how she leads. The WTF email from a franchisee that cost her millions to make right, the two bosses who called her into an office at 21 and said we are worried about you, the unpopular calls that kept her brands alive through Covid, having her kids at 39 and 41, and the week in March 2020 when her seven month old was on a feeding tube while her franchisees screamed in her AirPods.

We also get into AG1. The founder had no idea she was already a customer, why AG1 was air freighted from New Zealand, the millions in human clinical trials, and what is coming next.

Where she came from is the whole point. Hope you guys enjoy this one.

Follow Kat: @katcoleatl

AG1: @drinkag1

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