Meet Our Leadership Team

Catherine became CEO of FASTSIGNS International, Inc. in 2009, bringing over 30 years of franchising and management experience.

In 2009, she received the International Franchise Association (IFA) Bonny LeVine Award in recognition of her contributions to the growth of the franchising industry and in 2010, the Dallas Business Journal named her a top Women Industry Leader in the Dallas Metroplex. In 2012, Catherine appeared on the Emmy Award-winning series Undercover Boss to learn new ways to advance the FASTSIGNS® brand. In 2015, she received the International Franchise Association’s first Franchise Action Network “FAN of the Year” award for her advocacy work in the franchising community. In 2016, she was selected as a Soderstrom Society Inductee for her contributions to the printing and graphic communications industry and was also honoured with the 2016 Leadership Award from the Women That Soar organisation. In 2018, she was honoured by the Sales and Marketing Executives International (SMEI) with their Ambassador of Free Enterprise Award.

Catherine has served on the Board of Directors of the IFA since 2008 and is currently in the role of Vice-Chair. Additionally, she serves on the Board of Directors of Brain Balance, a franchise company with a non-drug alternative for children with behavioural challenges, and serves on the Board of Directors of the franchisor Big Blue Swim School, one of the nation’s fastest-growing swim schools. She is a keynote speaker at many franchise industry events, as well as at many sign and visual graphics industry events.

Mark is a Certified Franchise Executive (CFE) with more than 20 years of experience in all aspects of franchising in both consumer industries (home services, food and retail) and in business-to-business (flooring; signs and graphics). His extensive franchising background includes franchisee relations, operations, training, company store operations, franchise law, intellectual property, financial management, procurement, technology, and sales and marketing.

He joined FASTSIGNS International in 2009, and today leads Franchise Support (including Training, Operations and Supply Chain) and global Franchise Development. Mark’s responsibilities cover overseeing “lead to lights on” support (through Franchise Sales, Real Estate and Development Services teams) and then continue seamlessly into providing ongoing, lifelong franchisee support (through the Training, Operations and Supply Chain teams).

Mark has been a panellist and panel leader for sessions at many International Franchise Association Conventions and at the Franchise Development Leadership Conference, and has spoken at international franchise forums in the Middle East, Peru and the United Kingdom.

Since joining the company, the brand has added more than 200 locations domestically and signed international agreements to enter twelve new countries (UAE, Malta, Italy, Greece, Chile, Spain, the Caribbean, and 4 others in the Middle East).

Prior to joining FASTSIGNS, Mark was the Vice-President of Franchise Development for 8 years for multiple franchise-owned brands at CCA Global Partners including ProSource Wholesale Floor Covering.

Shayne is a Certified Franchise Executive (CFE) with over 20 years of executive leadership experience. He has an extensive background in franchising, information technology, business start-ups and acquisitions.

Most recently the Chief Information Officer for Neighbourly (previously The Dwyer Group) for 6 years, Shayne was responsible for the company’s global technology strategy and digital footprint. He provided business transformation oversight, improving program performance and managing risk for the Neighborly franchise brands. Shayne was also the president of ZorWare, LLC, a Neighbourly company that provides technology solutions and technical support to franchisees.

Before joining Neighbourly, Shayne served as Senior Vice-President for a Mark Cuban-owned data centre and cloud services company in Dallas, Texas, where he focused on delivering cloud-based technology solutions to consumer and enterprise customers. Shayne also spent over a decade launching and managing a series of startups in technology consulting, e-commerce, commercial printing and manufacturing. After selling these businesses in 2008, he held a Board of Directors seat and served as President of the operating entities until 2011.

He began his career with IBM where he worked in networking, data analytics and business intelligence teams.

Shayne is a native Texan and is actively involved with the International Franchise Association.

Jennifer brings over 20 years of experience in marketing with a demonstrated capacity to solve problems with fresh, insight-driven strategic solutions and scale for growth. Her broad background includes all marketing disciplines and strong cross-functional knowledge of all business fundamentals. She has a successful track record of transforming brands and driving business results in multiple fast-paced industries with diverse environments.

A confident, goal-oriented leader with the ability to motivate others to achieve results, Jennifer most recently held the role of Chief Marketing Officer for Smoothie King. During her time there, she directed all brand, marketing and R&D strategy to build the brand and drive business results in the fulfilment of its mission to inspire people to live a healthy and active lifestyle for over 1,000 locations.

Before joining Smoothie King, Jennifer held senior leadership positions in a wide variety of franchise and company brands including Gold’s Gym, Dave & Buster’s, Nestle Waters North America and Pizza Hut. Jennifer began her career with The UPS Store where she worked in several roles as the primary driver of new product development and customer services in support of over 2,000 franchisees.

In December 2018, she was named one of Dallas’ Rising Brand Stars by AdWeek. Herskind is a Dallas native and belongs to a family of business entrepreneurs she enjoys assisting in her spare time.

Jason White brings an extensive financial background to his role as Chief Financial Officer of Propelled Brands. Prior to this role, he served as the Chief Operations Officer of the Americas Region for Pentax Medical, a medical device subsidiary of HOYA. He joined Pentax in October 2021 as a Financial Business Consultant before transitioning to COO.

Before coming to Pentax, Jason spent 14 years with HOYA Vision Care, where he began his career as the Corporate Controller helping to establish a solid accounting foundation before moving into finance and administration working with IT partners to build scalable systems as the VP of Finance and Administration. He later became the Interim CEO, and during his final six years there, Jason served as the CFO of the Americas Region for HOYA Vision Care, where he developed a successful mergers and acquisitions strategy for the company.

Jason received a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting as well as a Master of Science in Finance from Texas A&M University. He is also a Certified Public Accountant.

As the General Counsel at Propelled Brands, Russell Kruse brings over 13 years experience in legal and franchising, where he has provided strategic business solutions, efficient and timely legal support and management services.

In his most recent role as Chief Legal Officer and a member of the Board of Managers at Premium Service Brands, Russell demonstrated success defining legal strategies and business leadership supporting core business objectives and scaling the business up and down to meet growth or downsizing needs. He has successfully managed and supported fast paced and large volume mergers and acquisitions transactions, litigation, employment, & risk management as well as franchise development and regulatory compliance.

Before joining Premium Service Brands, he worked at several law firms including Royer Caramanis PLC, Tucker Griffin Barnes P.C., and Paullin Law. His legal resume extends to the nonprofit world as he has served as the Direct of Legal Affairs for All Blessings Flow, LLC, as well as a Board Member for Camp Albemarle, Inc., and a Philanthropy Committee - Member for the Center at Belvedere.

Russell is known as providing clear and responsive counsel regarding complex legal and business matters, while being respected for communicating effectively with all levels of the organization. His business acumen and ability to develop relationships with strategic alliances has proven beneficial in the negotiation and drafting of major vendor contracts and significant business transactions of various enterprises. His strategic approach for corporate legal services is to exceed company business objectives with effective and efficient balance of in-house speed and responsiveness with exceptional outsourced expertise, measured by key metrics of business performance and risk mitigation.

John, a Qualified Franchise Professional (QFP), joined FASTSIGNS in 2015 and brings over 25 years of business leadership, development and sales experience to the FASTSIGNS UK business, including over 15 years of experience dedicated to the franchise sector. John’s role as the UK managing director is to oversee all elements of the UK business, supporting franchisees and growing the network, via the effective deployment of the FASTSIGNS brand in the UK market.

John’s strategic focus has been developed across an extensive career of operating in senior leadership positions, across a wide range of industries including eCommerce, consumer-focused specialist retail in the ceramics, bathrooms and wellness industries, and business-focused property development, construction and manufacturing sectors.

Notably, John’s franchising experience is derived from his decade-long tenure with specialist retailer Bathstore, where he held the title of Director of Franchising, until 2013. John played a pivotal role in the growth of the business and improvement in franchisee profitability and satisfaction, during his time there.

During his career with Bathstore, John also experienced life as a franchisee, launching, co-owning and successfully operating two Bathstore outlets. This experience has placed John with a profoundly unique perspective on the franchising industry, being able to empathise with both the franchisee and franchisor objectives.

John studied for his BSc Hons degree in Geography and Economics at Kingston Upon Thames University.