And the Franchise Personality of the Year 2007 is...

Craig MacKenzie, the Franchise Personality of the Year 2007.

MacKenzie has been an integral part of the franchising industry since 1992 and has passionately embraced franchising subsequently. The franchise industry has honoured him for setting standards that are now the norm in the industry.

These standards include introducing business plans for franchisees, shifting the 'inspector role' of the franchisor's team into highly trained 'consultants', introducing highly effective training, motivating franchisees by setting benchmarks, rewarding high achievers and continually focusing on world-class practice and applying this to upgrade local standards. The list goes on.

However, most importantly of all, MacKenzie is hands-on and lives by the mantra that he will lead by example and never open a franchise that he would not buy himself. He believes franchising should be consultative rather than autocratic and many of his store managers have become business partners, demonstrating his commitment to empowerment.

According to Wessel Ebersohn, publisher of Succeed: "Craig MacKenzie is a leader in South African franchising. He has a reputation for both initiating successful ventures and for uncompromising integrity. He has pioneered ways of operating and has set standards in the industry that few can emulate."

The first brand that MacKenzie developed was Debonairs Pizza – despite being told that a pizza venture and delivery service would not succeed in South Africa. He and business partner Andrew Harvey persevered and, complete with tuxedo attired delivery men, started the business from the back of a Spar store. With an extensive locality marketing campaign and a customer database to drive sales, they ultimately pioneered home delivery in South Africa by 1991. Within a year, Debonairs Pizza was franchised.

The brand was acquired by the Steers Group of companies, (now Famous Brands) in 1996. This proved a powerful combination, giving the brand access to world-class infrastructure.

In 1998, the brand was sold to Steers Holdings. However MacKenzie continued to run it until 2001 and took the brand into Africa. Under his stewardship, it won a string of awards including winning the prestigious FASA Franchisor of the Year twice.

After leaving Debonairs Pizza, MacKenzie became one of their key franchisees and, today, still owns the Master Licence for Steers in Botswana, two Debonairs Pizza outlets and a Steers outlet in Rustenburg.

In 2002, he started the Retsol Group with entrepreneur Wayne Duncan.

In addition to launching new brands, MacKenzie has taken mature franchise brands that were declining and rejuvenated them.

Today, Retsol has grown to the point where it manages outlets throughout southern Africa (South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, etc) trading in over 450 locations within six operating retail brands and employing over 140 people.

When Unilever Ice Cream South Africa (Ola) acquired Milky Lane and Juicy Lucy in 2003, Retsol negotiated a management contract for Ola Milky Lane and Juicy Lucy.

Retsol has since purchased Juicy Lucy from Unilever and has also added 50% of Chicken King to its repertoire. Already the Chicken King logo and menu have been revamped and three 'new look' stores opened. Retsol also manages approximately 200 Corner Bakery outlets for Engen and newly developed cellular brand WOLA MTN, whilst Bread Ahead outlets are either company owned or joint ventures.