Recognitions
2017 Issue 4 | GearedUp
United PF Partners Welcomes Former Starbucks China SVP as COO
Shelli Taylor’ s journey from China to
Texas begins like a lot of great stories: with a mutual friendship. Taylor, who was working as senior vice president of operations for Starbucks China, shared two different mutual friends from the coffee chain with United PF Partners CEO Trey Owen. Because of the relationship, Taylor agreed to take Owen’ s call in the spring of 2017.
“ We had to work through time zones and Shelli’ s heavy travel schedule to connect on the phone. We eventually made it work and an initial 30-minute call turned into two hours. The chemistry was immediate,” Owen explained.“ We talked a few more times and determined there was enough for us to visit in person. It was early summer, and at the time, Shelli was busy with annual planning, completing opening 18 new markets and 500 new stores across China. Sounded busy to me! So I jumped on a plane and headed to Shanghai.” With Taylor traveling elsewhere, her 13-year-old son, Rory, stood in as guide and translator on Owen’ s first evening in China, giving Owen“ an enthusiastic Thumbs Up.”
With Owen jet-lagged and Taylor exhausted from her travels, their initial dinner meeting lacked the first chemistry the two had shared over the phone. Thankfully, additional meetings had been planned over the three-day visit.“ The following morning we put on our workout clothes and strolled through her neighborhood, the French Concession. It was a hot, muggy and gray, rainy Saturday morning. We hardly noticed the weather because the reconnection occurred,” said Owen.“ We spent the morning learning about each other’ s families, passions and hopes for the future. Over the next few days, we met several more times, deepening our conversation about Planet Fitness ®
and our potential synergy. The rest is history.”
Like many in the PF ® community, Taylor worked her way through the ranks at Starbucks, joining the company in 1992 as part of the San Francisco market opening team when the coffee giant had only 125 locations. Throughout her time with Starbucks, Taylor served in all of the field operations roles from assistant store manager through senior vice president as the company expanded to 26,000 stores in 75 countries. In addition, Taylor filled leadership roles in human resources, real estate, food, operations services and channel development.
When Owen and Taylor met, she was serving in China as the senior vice president of China operations, supporting both company-operated stores and the East China joint venture partnership stores, which consisted of 3,000 stores across 128 cities with over 40,000 employees.
So what do coffee and fitness have in common? More than you would think.“ Both companies are deeply grounded in common values to enrich people’ s daily lives through the products and experiences provided,” Owen said.“ Starbucks is really about providing a phenomenal customer
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