EP14: The Real Work of Turning Smashburger’s CEO Vision Into Rapid Execution

"If you want people to move fast, you have to make it easy for them to do the right thing."

Kelly Saunders, SVP of Restaurant Experience at Smashburger, has spent 14 years transforming how one of America’s fastest-growing burger brands trains, communicates, and executes. In this episode, Kelly sits down with Rachael Nemeth (Opus Training CEO) to unpack how she migrated 200 locations to Opus in just 60 days, what it really takes to win franchisee buy-in, and how training became the engine behind Smashburger’s turnaround.

Kelly gets candid about building credibility through socialized decision-making, using pilots to build trust, and why the fastest rollouts start months before the kickoff. She also breaks down the “Summer of Smash” LTO—how pre-learning helped drive flawless LTO execution and why Opus enabled them to finally deploy a cascade training model.

Whether you lead five restaurants or five hundred, Kelly’s blend of empathy, structure, and data-driven leadership offers a real-time playbook for transforming field execution through learning.

Key Takeaways

→ Speed Through Socialization: The 200-store Opus launch succeeded because months of stakeholder buy-in came first.

→ Franchise Trust = Momentum: Pilots, transparency, and clear WIFM (“What’s In It for Me”) built confidence system-wide.

→ The Watering Hole Effect: Designing Opus as a one-stop source for learning, comms, and recognition increased engagement across operators.

→ Train Before You Teach: Pre-learning flipped the script on LTO rollouts, driving faster adoption and stronger execution.

→ Compliance ≠ Learning: Brand standards are the true measure of operational compliance—and the key to consistency.

Perfect For

Restaurant operators managing both corporate and franchise units, L&D leaders driving engagement at scale, training pros planning platform migrations, and executives navigating the balance between technology, culture, and execution.

About Kelly Saunders

Senior Vice President of Restaurant Experience at Smashburger. A 14-year veteran of the brand with roots at Quiznos and Applebee’s, Kelly is known for bridging learning, operations, and technology to deliver measurable field impact. She leads Smashburger’s Restaurant Experience Team—spanning L&D, internal communications, and operations services—on a mission to make training a true business lever.

Time Stamp Chapters

• 00:00 Intro + Kelly’s path to Restaurant Experience leadership

• 01:33 Restructuring training under operations — a new model

• 04:34 Decision-making that builds trust and speed

• 08:41 When an LMS goes stale (and how to spot it)

• 09:29 Translation as a game-changer for frontline teams

• 12:15 How Smashburger migrated 200 locations in 60 days

• 14:47 Pilots, proof points, and franchisee buy-in

• 18:31 Choosing what new features to roll out (and when)

• 21:40 Inside the Summer of Smash LTO — training at speed

• 24:34 Why pre-learning beat live training for execution

• 28:35 Mandating vs recommending training in a franchise model

• 31:41 Next up: Re-launching internal communications in Opus

• 35:15 How marketing + training stay in sync

• 36:29 Lessons from 200 stores: Why LMS is never a silver bullet

• 37:51 Lightning Round — first job, hometown, and human connection

About Us
Opus is the hospitality training platform purpose-built for the frontline. Train 100% of your team in 101 languages on the job to quickly get them up the productivity curve. With full visibility across your workforce, you get the frontline business intelligence needed to drive your business.

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