A Guatemalan immigrant began delivering pizzas in Dallas in 1987; decades later she built a franchise training organisation

Aicha Bascaro arrived in the United States as an immigrant from Guatemala and, in 1987, took a job delivering pizzas at a Domino's restaurant in Dallas, Texas. What began as an entry-level job became the starting point for a career spanning more than three decades and almost every level of the franchise industry. Bascaro worked as a crew member and manager before moving into senior positions, including director of operations, vice president, international consultant and eventually brand president, where she oversaw more than 300 locations across the country. Along the way, she saw a gap that she believed was easy to overlook: franchise owners could be taught how to operate a particular brand without necessarily receiving the broader business education needed to lead and grow a company. That idea eventually became the foundation for the American Franchise Academy. In 2016, a struggling franchisee contacted Bascaro looking for help with a failing business, and instead of simply offering informal advice, she developed a structured training program around the problems he was facing. The American Franchise Academy was founded on July 18, 2016, and a decade later has grown into a specialised organisation focused on business management education for franchisees and their teams.Why Aicha Bascaro says franchisors teach the brand but not the businessAccording to the International Franchise Association, Bascaro created the academy around what she considers one of the franchise industry's biggest gaps. Franchisors generally provide extensive training on their own brands, teaching new owners how their particular systems work and how to operate according to established standards. Bascaro's view is that this brand-specific training does not necessarily cover the wider business skills required to lead and grow a franchise. She has described the distinction simply: franchisors provide the brand and train franchisees to operate it, but they cannot provide the broader business acumen. That, she says, is where the American Franchise Academy comes in, offering training focused on helping franchisees become stronger business leaders rather than simply better operators of a particular brand.The idea came from Bascaro's own experience in the industry. Having progressed from delivering pizzas to senior leadership roles, she had spent years seeing how responsibilities changed as people moved from working inside individual locations to managing larger operations. By the time the struggling franchisee contacted her in 2016, she had accumulated the practical experience to recognise that his problem was not necessarily a lack of effort or knowledge about the brand itself. He needed a more structured understanding of how to manage the business. That first training program eventually became the starting point for an academy built around a much broader idea: franchise ownership requires more than knowing the rules of the brand.How the academy's three programs serve different levels of a franchise organisationThe American Franchise Academy now divides its main curriculum into three programs designed for different levels of responsibility within a franchise organisation.MANAGE provides business-management education for single-unit franchisees and unit managers. The program is aimed at people responsible for the performance of an individual location and focuses on giving them a structured foundation in franchise business management.LEAD is designed for district managers, who oversee multiple locations and therefore operate at a different level from managers responsible for a single unit. The academy offers certification through the program, reflecting the additional responsibilities involved in managing teams and operations across several locations.At the top of the academy's structure is COMMAND, its flagship program. It brings together the broader curriculum intended for franchisees who want to lead and grow their businesses. The three-level structure allows the academy to address people at different stages of the franchise hierarchy rather than treating every operator as though they face the same challenges.Over its first decade, the academy says it has certified more than 400 district managers, more than 200 unit managers and around 100 franchisees. Its participants have come from some of the biggest names in franchising, including McDonald's, Popeyes, Dairy Queen, Subway, Dunkin' and Anytime Fitness. Those numbers also illustrate how the academy has moved beyond the single franchisee whose problems inspired Bascaro to create the original training program. What began as an attempt to help one struggling business has developed into a formal education system serving franchise professionals across multiple major brands.What Bascaro built beyond the academy's formal programsBascaro's work has expanded beyond classroom-style certification. During the academy's first decade, she also built a wider collection of educational material around franchise management, including three Amazon bestselling books and a weekly blog focused on franchising and business education. She also hosts the Franchise Success Formulas podcast, which has attracted more than 19,000 YouTube subscribers. Together, the books, blog, podcast and certification programs have allowed the academy to reach people at different stages of their franchise careers and through different formats.Bascaro has also received recognition within the franchise industry. Her honours include being named to Nation's Restaurant News' 2022 Power List and receiving a Trailblazer Award. She also serves as a Certified Franchise Executive instructor for the International Franchise Association. The broader body of work reflects the same distinction that shaped the academy from the beginning. Bascaro's focus is not simply on teaching franchisees how to follow the operating model of a particular company. Instead, the academy treats business management as a separate area of education that franchise operators can continue developing throughout their careers. That distinction becomes particularly important when a franchisee grows. Running one location and leading a larger franchise operation involve different levels of responsibility, and the academy's programs are structured around those different stages.What comes next for the American Franchise Academy after 10 yearsThe academy is now looking beyond its first decade and toward expanding the reach of its training. One of its priorities is developing multilingual programs that could make the academy's business-management education available to franchise operators around the world rather than primarily serving English-speaking participants. The organisation is also expanding its work directly with franchisors. Through its franchisor partnership strategy, the academy aims to help individual brands provide structured business-management education to their franchise networks through an outside training organisation. Instead of requiring franchisees to find this kind of education independently, the model would allow brands to make it part of the wider support available to their operators.Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.