{"id":612716,"date":"2026-09-26T20:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T20:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/612716\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T20:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T20:06:09","slug":"dominos-youngest-nz-owner-liam-stops-from-dishwasher-to-head-office-and-a-134m-turnaround-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/612716\/","title":{"rendered":"Domino\u2019s youngest NZ owner Liam Stops: From dishwasher to head office and a $134m turnaround plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

That made them the youngest franchisees in Domino\u2019s New Zealand history. By 2020, they owned four stores between them in Rotorua, Taup\u014d and Whakat\u0101ne<\/a>. <\/p>\n

When the pair sold their stores two years later, Liam Stops went into a company job and won a string of in-house awards.<\/p>\n

He said it hadn\u2019t always been an easy rise, and there had been a few doubters along the way.<\/p>\n

When he took over his first store, he recalls some of his staff thinking, \u201cWhy am I listening to an 18-year-old who owns this business?\u201d<\/p>\n

Some doubted his age. Others might still baulk at following his path: 19 years in fast food, starting at 12.<\/p>\n

Yet his story joins the Herald\u2019s recent report on Mitre 10\u2019s youngest owner, Jacob Cooke-Tait<\/a>, in spotlighting different pathways to success.<\/p>\n

It also recognises regional New Zealand\u2019s opportunities, when seen through a different lens.<\/p>\n

\"LiamLiam Stops and Domino’s NZ chief executive Abhishek Jain are tasked with helping their store owners build more profitable businesses. <\/p>\n

Man in the middle of a \u2018reset\u2019<\/p>\n

Stops\u2019 promotion has come at an important turning point for Domino\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s global leadership said in August that it had embarked on a \u201creset\u201d strategy.<\/p>\n

Domino\u2019s Pizza Enterprises \u2013 the Australian parent of the NZ chain \u2013 owns the master franchise rights in 12 countries from Japan to Germany.<\/p>\n

It posted a $134.2m loss in the past financial year after one-off write-downs, it said in its August annual report.<\/p>\n

It plans to close 29 underperforming stores across Australia and New Zealand, part of up to 60 worldwide.<\/p>\n

Australia and New Zealand were \u201cat the forefront\u201d of the company\u2019s reset, the report said, \u201cshifting the focus from growth-at-any-cost to prioritising long-term franchisee profitability\u201d.<\/p>\n

Stops\u2019 job, working with new NZ chief executive Abhishek Jain, is to help those store owners grow their profits and sustainable businesses.<\/p>\n

\"LiamLiam Stops tried to become known as Mr Pizza in his local community when he owned Domino’s stores. He is pictured here giving food away during the Covid pandemic.<\/p>\n

As market manager, he works with the country\u2019s 98 franchisees, who collectively own 149 stores, to solve the challenges they face.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s in charge of five consultants who also travel the country meeting store owners \u2013 a job he was doing the past four years.<\/p>\n

During that time, he was named top business consultant across Australia and New Zealand twice in three years, he said.<\/p>\n

Running a Domino\u2019s store requires discipline. Profits are made by selling lots of pizzas and keeping costs down, rather than banking a fat margin on each slice.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a low-margin business and focused on increasing turnover,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to understand your numbers. You\u2019ve got to control costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also tells owners to become part of the fabric of their town; to help out and run \u201cdough raises\u201d for causes like the Westpac rescue helicopter.<\/p>\n

When he and his brother started, their \u201cgoal was to be Mr Pizza in the community\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

He also gives school career talks to 15, 16 and 17-year-olds.<\/p>\n

It has him keeping an eye out for the next young franchisee, possibly even one who could break his record as New Zealand\u2019s youngest store owner, which has stood for 13 years.<\/p>\n

\"KaedynKaedyn (left) and Liam Stops bought their first Domino’s store in 2013, when Liam was 18.<\/p>\n

Leadership from the floor up<\/p>\n

But breaking his record won\u2019t be easy.<\/p>\n

It took Stops six years of work shifts, selling his wheels, every dollar he had saved and the $450,000 loan at age 18 (later transferred from Domino\u2019s to a bank) to get his first store in 2013.<\/p>\n

He started at Domino\u2019s through his teenage sister, who was already working at his local store.<\/p>\n

He went from dish pit to front counter to making staff rosters to managing by 15.<\/p>\n

Jointly buying a store at 18 meant near 80-hour weeks and leaning on his father for advice.<\/p>\n

His dad had run his own Hawke\u2019s Bay business, Headstone World, for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a bit daunting at first to put everything you have into something,\u201d Stops told Hawke\u2019s Bay Today in 2020, \u201cbut Domino\u2019s had a lot of faith in us\u201d.<\/p>\n

He suggested that the grind of running four stores and growing so quickly left little time for other pursuits, so he and his brother sold up in 2022.<\/p>\n

Kaedyn had his first child and was keen to move closer to their parents in Hawke\u2019s Bay, while Stops also wanted more family time, he said.<\/p>\n

\"KaedynKaedyn and Liam Stops pictured when they were 21 and 20 and preparing to buy their second Domino’s Pizza store in Rotorua. Photo \/ Andrew Warner<\/p>\n

He still loved Domino\u2019s, however, and when the company called about a head office job, he jumped at it.<\/p>\n

His efforts in buying four stores with his brother still placed him among rare company.<\/p>\n

Today, most of New Zealand\u2019s 98 franchisees own only one store, with a \u201ccouple\u201d owning two and three, he said.<\/p>\n

The New Zealand franchisee with the most stores owns six.<\/p>\n

Now, having reached the ripe age of 31, Stops still regularly finds himself having to advise those older than him.<\/p>\n

His belief in how to earn others\u2019 respect is little changed from his time as an 18-year-old rookie business owner.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about leading from the front\u201d, creating good teams and workplaces, and showing you had the knowledge required, he said.<\/p>\n

Or, as he told the Herald in 2020, when he and Kaedyn were still teenagers: \u201cWe\u2019re knees down scrubbing floors with them, and that\u2019s what\u2019s different. Our staff work with us, not for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That made them the youngest franchisees in Domino\u2019s New Zealand history. By 2020, they owned four stores between…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[29937,18919,95,138509,138,301795,76689,71,106,20409,111,139,69,6270,2738,2170,75703,2735,61,46345,102,56521,287340,2963],"class_list":["post-612716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-134m","tag-aged","tag-and","tag-brass","tag-business","tag-dishwasher","tag-dominos","tag-from","tag-head","tag-liam","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-office","tag-owner","tag-plan","tag-stops","tag-store","tag-to","tag-turnaround","tag-with","tag-youngest","tag-youngestever","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}