Bryce Bell
Bryce Bell was the Founder of the Franchisors Association of Australia (now FCA) in 1983 and of the Auckland, NZ Chapter six years later. He served as Executive Director until 1994 and during his tenure he was one of three FAA Nominees to serve on the Federal Government Franchising Task Force, represented Australian Franchising on the World Franchising Council Steering Committee in 1992 and initiated the First Asian Franchising Conference and Exhibition in Singapore
Whilst Executive Director of FAA, Bryce initiated the Annual Conference and Exhibition in 1987, the First Franchising Legal Forums in 1986 and subsequently in 1990, implemented the “Awards of Excellence” project in 1990 and in the same year Edited the original “Franchisor’s Manual” and “Franchisee’s Guide” and in 1992 proposed the conducting of the joint FAA/Arthur Anderson Franchising Survey
Following his retirement, Bryce wrote and published “Franchising Down Under” in 2003 which is a History of the concept in Australia and New Zealand.”
As a result of his tireless efforts the Association grew from the initial 20 or so members to several hundred. Bryce basically did everything – organised the events, assisted with lobbying, wrote submissions, organised conferences and managed the finances.
He served as CEO for approximately 10 years.
Evan Christou
Evan Christou’s involvement in franchising is now the subject of Pizza Haven’s television commercials. With his brothers he built from scratch the Pizza Haven network, which commenced in 1984 and now has 230 stores across Australia, New Zealand and Thailand. In doing so Pizza Haven has been able to take on the major international brands, and withstand some of the most aggressive discounting seen in Australia.
The Pizza Haven network employs around 6,000 people and produces 20 million pizzas a year.
Evan has been Chapter President of South Australia for many years, has served on the FCA national board, and has been a strong advocate for franchising in South Australia. He has also many awards for his community work, including an Order of Australia for services to the Greek community
Jack Cowin
Jack Cowin is Australia’s most successful fast food entrepreneur. He built the Hungry Jacks network in Australia to 300 stores, developing a distinctive business format and tackling some major international brands along the way.
More recently he had the courage to take on and beat the mighty Burger King Corporation in litigation that set a precedent likely to assist all Australian master licensees in future.
He is an investor in several franchise chains, and remains a passionate advocate for franchising. Hungry Jacks is one of Australia’s leading franchise systems.
Roger Gillespie
Roger Gillespie has built the Bakers Delight network into one of Australia’s premier homegrown franchise systems. Bakers Delight is market leader in its field, and has withstood substantial challenges from the major supermarket chains to build a network of over 700 franchisees.
The Bakers Delight training, advertising and branding programs and franchise system are innovative and world class. The franchisees have been very successful in their local markets, and Bakers Delight has been awarded the FCA Franchise System of the year in 2001 and 2002.
Bakers Delight remains an industry benchmark for franchise systems in Australia.
Bob Jane
Bob Jane is founder and managing director of Bob Jane T Marts.
Bob Jane started selling tyres in 1962. The tyre business grew in 8 years to approximately 9% of the national tyre market. In 1969 Bob and Bill Jane purchased the franchise in the General Motors Distributors Southern Motors which grew within a few years to the No. 1 General Motors dealer in the world.
During 1970/1971, Bob made a study of the franchise concepts at that period of time, and in 1972 implemented the Bob Jane T-Mart Franchise System. The Bob Jane T-Mart System was possibly the original Australian franchise concept, and one of Australia’s most successful ever homegrown franchise networks.
Bob successfully competed against the major multi-nationals, and frequently sold more of the manufacturers tyre’s through his outlets than they sold themselves. The secret to Bob’s competitive advantage, and his great passion, has been franchising.
Ray King
Ray King built Captain Snooze into one of Australia’s best-known brands, and was one of the pioneers of franchising in Australia.
Ray served for several years as a director of the Franchise Association of Australia and has been active in franchise sector matters for over 15 years. Ray is frequently sought by fellow franchisors for peer input, and is universally regarded as one of franchisings genuine nice guys.
Bob Lapointe
Bob Lapointe has had almost a lifetime involvement in franchising. His introduction to franchising was in the early 1960’s in Toronto, where he met Colonel Sanders and became a franchisee of KFC in his hometown of Windsor, Ontario at the age of 21. He built 8 KFC stores there and later sold them to Scots Restaurants.
He moved to Australia in 1967 to start KFC as the founding Managing Director. He was also instrumental in the development of Pizza Hut in Australia in 1970. He became a major franchisee of each of those companies establishing 25 KFC’s and 36 Pizza Huts by1977. These stores were subsequently sold back to the franchisors. He also served a brief period as President of KFC International in the early 70’s.
Bob was also instrumental in helping Collins Foods establish Sizzler Restaurants in Australia, becoming a major franchisee of 22 locations with Jardine Restaurants and later selling to that company in 1994. In addition from 1992 to 1998 he was a Director of Carlovers Carwash Limited, a national chain of 94 carwashes in Australia.
He is currently Chief Executive Officer of Lone Star Steakhouse and Saloon Australia and New Zealand, which he established in 1993 and has since established 19 Restaurant locations in 3 states, employing more than 1200 young Australians.
Chris Levy
Chris Levy was the founding president of the Franchise Association of Australia, and one of the pioneers of franchising in Australia.
Chris was the first chief executive of Pizza Hut in Australia, and helped establish the Pizza Hut chain as one of the first major fast food chains in Australia. The distinctive red roofed buildings were one of the early franchising beacons on the Australian landscape.
Chris Malcolm
Chris Malcolm has been active in franchising for over 15 years. His first involvement was with Solomon’s carpets, but in more recent times he has taken the dormant Clark Rubber brand and reinvented it as a vibrant modern retail network. The same leadership he has shown in this endeavour was shown during his 2-year chairmanship of the Franchise Council of Australia during the mid 1990s. Chris guided the Association through a restructuring process that resulted in a reinvigorated organisation with a national focus but a local heartbeat.
Chris served for 5 years on the national board of the FCA, and has been an active participant in the franchising debate throughout his time in franchising.
Jim McCracken
Jim McCracken’s contribution to franchising will be well known to most, and has been so substantial that the Victorian Outstanding Contribution to Franchising Award is called the Jim McCracken Award.
Jim was a founding director of the Franchisors Association, and Hometure was one of the pioneer mobile franchise systems in Australia. He served several terms as a director of the Franchise Council of Australia, is a former President of the Victorian Chapter of the FCA. He subsequently served as Victorian Secretariat, then took on the challenging task as Chief Executive Officer of the FCA in 1996. He retired in 2002.
Largely as a result of Jim’s efforts we have the financially strong and vibrant industry association we see today.
Bill McGowan
Bill McGowan has taken the Fastway Couriers system to the world, with Fastway currently franchised in 15 countries; New Zealand, Australia, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Germany, France, Spain, Morocco, Canada, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
Fastway has pioneered franchising in the transport industry globally, and mobile franchising in Australia. In 1998 Fastway won the BRW Fastest Growing Australian Company, and was the FCA Franchise System of the Year.
Bill McGowan has been a passionate advocate for franchising, and has made an outstanding contribution to Australian and indeed global franchising. Bill was New Zealand’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 1986. He served 4 terms as a director of the Franchise Council of Australia, is the longest serving NSW State President and served as national chairman of the FCA in 1999.
Under Bill’s chairmanship the World Franchise Council and the Asia Pacific Franchise Confederation have been turned into vibrant international franchise organisations that are well placed to assist Australian franchise systems expand internationally.
Stephen Penfold
Stephen Penfold has been responsible for the introduction of three franchise systems into Australia. Kwik Kopy Australia was a founding member of the then Franchisors Association of Australia, and Stephen worked tirelessly as a director of the Association.
He is a former chairman of the Franchise Council of Australia, and was active on behalf of the sector in the franchise regulation debate of the early 1990s.
Kwik Kopy Australia is one of Australia’s leading franchise systems, and a former franchise system of the year. A Kwik Kopy franchisee has also been awarded the coveted national Franchisee of the Year Award.
Jim Penman

The Jim’s brand now adorns 45 different business systems, from antennas and appliance repairs to wardrobes and window cleaning. The distinctive Jim’s brand and customer management systems made famous in lawn mowing have been cleverly leveraged into other home services applications in a way and to an extent that is unique in the world. Jim Penman is one of the pioneers of service franchising in Australia.
Tom Potter
Tom Potter established the Eagle Boys Pizza system in Queensland, and built it to a major chain of 170 stores across Australia and NZ before selling his NZ business to Pizza Hut.
Tom is one of the younger members of the Hall of Fame. He opened his own pizza store in Albury at age 23. He soon developed a franchise concept, moved head office to Coffs Harbour and finally Brisbane.
Tom is a Young Australian of the Year, Harvard graduate, talented and recognised public speaker, board member of AFL Qld, Brisbane Port Authority, Brumby’s Bakeries and Wallace Bishop Jewellers. He is a past FCA Queensland Chapter committee member and long time supporter of all things franchising.
Lenard Poulter
Len Poulter founded Lenard’s Poultry in Brisbane in 1987, identifying a niche market for value-added chicken products. The Lenards network has grown to more than 180 successful franchises throughout Australia serving over 10 million customers a year.
Over the past 15 years Lenard’s have won several awards including the FCA Franchisor of the Year, the FCA Franchisee of the Year and the Australian Retailer of the Year. Lenard’s is now one of Australia’s leading fresh food retailers and a pioneer in the kitchen ready market.
As founder Len Poulter is recognised for his strategic vision, continual motivation, passion for retail and his outstanding contributing to franchising. With limited capital, Len Poulter started the business as a franchise system by sharing his vision to be a market leader with his stakeholders. Len has provided strong leadership and has been the catalyst for the success of the Lenard’s system.
Peter Ritchie
Peter Ritchie is a former chairman and chief executive officer of McDonalds Australia. Under his management McDonalds Australia has grown to be the benchmark for successful franchise systems in Australia. The focus and skill he brought to the Australian business saw McDonalds Australia consistently rated within the McDonalds global network as the best in category across most if not all criteria such that McDonalds Australia was the internal benchmark with McDonalds globally.
McDonalds Australia has done much to assist in the creation of the current positive image franchising enjoys, and much of this has been as a result of Peter Ritchie’s contribution to McDonalds.
Warwick Shedden
The late Warwick Shedden was one of the franchising communities most loved members. Co-founder of the Oz Design network, Warwick served for several years on the board of the Franchise Council of Australia. He was active in the regulatory debate, and served on the Franchising Code Administration Council established by the Government in around 1995.
Warwick was an active member of the franchising community, always positive and constructive and with boundless energy and passion for franchising.
Warwick symbolises the ideal franchisor member of the FCA – passionate, energetic, unselfish with information, committed to building the FCA into a strong voice and good fun to be with. He passed away suddenly in 2002.
Professor Andrew Terry
Professor Andrew Terry is Australia’s leading franchise academic. He has published over 100 articles on franchising in journals and magazines throughout the world, and is co-author of several books including Franchising Law and practice. In 2001 he was awarded the International Franchise Associations Award for the best-published article on franchising in the world.
Andrew has been the architect of the structure and content of our Accredited Franchise Executive program, and is a lead presenter. He is a former board member of the FCA; a former winner of the FCA’s Outstanding Contribution to Franchising Award and a ubiquitous global advocate for franchising.
S.G. Paddy Thompson
The late Paddy Thompson was born and educated in Ireland, and migrated to Australia in 1965 after a distinguished career in the British Colonial Service.
He joined the Imperial Printing Group and in 1967 was entrusted with the development of Snap Printing, which he built from one outlet in Western Australia to over 80 company franchise outlets in 5 states and master franchises overseas. Snap Printing is a two-time winner of the FCA Franchisor of the Year award, and Snap franchisees have won numerous national and State franchisee of the Year awards.
Paddy was a founder member of the Franchise Association of Australia, now called the Franchise Council of Australia. He served on the Executive as the Vice President responsible for membership and ethics. He authored the first of the FCA publication Compiling a Franchise Operations Manual, and was a generous mentor for many in the franchising community.
He retired as Managing Director of Snap Printing Group in 1988 and continued as a Director until 1996. He sadly passed away in 1999.
Bill Vis
Bill Vis is one of the pioneers of home services franchising in Australia. Bill Vis established the VIP Lawn Mowing concept in 1972 and was the first person to franchise lawn mowing in Australia.
The system grew rapidly, and has since expanded to include carpet and window cleaning, handyman and other home services. VIP won the FCA Franchise System of the Year (entry capital under $50,000) in 1998, and boasts a network of over 1,000 franchisees throughout Australia and New Zealand.
Bill has been a constant face at franchise industry events for the past 20 years.