{"id":557072,"date":"2026-03-31T23:18:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T23:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/557072\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T23:18:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T23:18:24","slug":"former-wnba-player-exercises-skills-with-wendys-april","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/557072\/","title":{"rendered":"Former WNBA Player Exercises Skills With Wendy\u2019s | April"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story is part of a Franchise Times special feature on athletes in franchising, which appears in the April print edition of the magazine. Check out more stories here.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Playing professional basketball gave Rasheeda Clark the accountability, discipline and preparation for her second career in business.<\/p>\n

\"Rasheeda-Clark-1000px.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Rasheeda Clark, who played for three WNBA teams, focuses on driving growth in Flynn Group Wendy\u2019s units.<\/p>\n

The president of Flynn Group\u2019s Wendy\u2019s division played for the WNBA\u2019s Portland Fire, the Charlotte Sting and the Connecticut Sun. Today she oversees more than 300 Wendy\u2019s restaurants in Flynn\u2019s portfolio, accounting for nearly $800 million in revenue.<\/p>\n

As a brand leader for the largest franchisee group in the country, she nearly doubled Flynn\u2019s unit count of Wendy\u2019s and expanded into international markets. But one of her proudest accomplishments is helping her team grow. Three of her team members were promoted to vice presidential roles under her watch.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about chasing titles for me. It really is about doing the work with a group of people that you\u2019re connected to, that you care for, and being able to elevate them to the levels of success that maybe they never thought they could achieve,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n

Flynn Group, led by founder and CEO Greg Flynn, has a vast portfolio of 3,000-plus units in brands such as Applebee\u2019s, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Planet Fitness doing $5 billion in sales. The company\u2019s notoriety as a restaurant operating group was one of the things that drew Clark. The other was the culture among the company and its team members.<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout the interview process, the way they showed up authentically, it felt like real people having conversations,\u201d said Clark, who spent two decades in corporate roles at PepsiCo and Advance Auto Parts before joining Flynn Group in 2022. \u201cYou get a chance to see how Flynn Group was and is, and continues to invest in leaders and empower operators to make the decisions that they see fit and best for their business.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the core of Clark\u2019s leadership philosophy is caring for her people and helping them achieve their goals. She ensures that her team members feel seen and heard in their roles. Just like a basketball team, she installs the underlying idea that everyone wants the group to succeed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s having this human kindness under pressure as a leader and being able to provide your team with clarity and consistency,\u201d she said. \u201cMost folks show up every day wanting to be successful, but they can only do that when expectations are clear and standards are consistently held across the org, regardless of title.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Wendy\u2019s, system sales in 2025 were $14 billion, a 3.5 percent decrease from the year before. Interim CEO Ken Cook said in February that those results are \u201cin line with our expectations, reflecting the challenges we anticipated.\u201d Clark is optimistic about the future of the brand.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may be in a tough climate, but a brand like Wendy\u2019s will rebound and bounce back, and we\u2019re going to be here for it 100 percent, 10 toes down,\u201d Clark said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Flynn had 167 Wendy\u2019s restaurants when Clark started. Since then, it\u2019s grown internationally with the signing of a master franchise agreement in Australia in 2024 with the expectation of opening 200 units nationwide.<\/a> Less than a year later, Flynn announced it bought Wendy\u2019s New Zealand.<\/p>\n

In general, companies should take advantage of the qualities professional athletes develop in their sports careers, Clark said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAthletes are drawn to environments that value discipline, teamwork, accountability and winning the right way,\u201d she said. \u201cI think brands need to be clear about standards, transparent about expectations and serious about development. I think athletes respect systems that reward effort, preparation and results.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is part of a Franchise Times special feature on athletes in franchising, which appears in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[247312,247311,247309,247310,99,124048,434,229516],"class_list":["post-557072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-athletes-in-franchising","tag-flynn-group","tag-franchise-times-april-2026","tag-rasheeda-clark","tag-sports","tag-wendy","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-athlete"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}