Louise Harris brings priceless expertise to Mathnasium franchisees

Louise Harris joins Mathnasium as the brand’s Franchise Operations Manager.

Louise will be helping franchisees increase their student numbers by mentoring them, sharing best practice, and developing marketing strategies.

“My role is to support franchisee growth,” says Louise, a former Board member of the British Franchise Association. “I’ll be developing training opportunities to ensure franchisees’ centres are delivering to Mathnasium’s internationally-proven standards.

“Just as Mathnasium is famous for helping children build on what they know to improve their success-rate, I’ll be doing the same by working with franchisees to help them do what they do even better. My main priority is to help them find the right direction to grow in. I’ve worked with business owners for a long time and know what it’s like because I’ve been one myself.”

Louise will also help franchisees improve – if possible – on their NPS score, a measure of customer satisfaction.

Headhunted by Mathnasium, Louise says it feels “like coming home” for her.

“It’s education franchising done well, it’s fantastic, and it’s making the best use of the skills I have. I’m looking at how we can expand the Mathnasium network here through having even more successful franchisees.

“I really admire what John Preston has done. He bought Mathnasium, only for us to have lockdown 20 days later, so he had to introduce the @Home online version very quickly.”

Louise was impressed, too, watching children arrive at Mathnasium and get straight on with their work without a trace of reluctance. Her own education at a girls’ boarding school gave her an insight into the confidence issues many children have before they first arrive at a Mathnasium centre.

“I had a great education, but I didn’t feel I was good at Maths because I wasn’t in the top stream, even though the school was in the top five per cent in the country.”

That left her with negative feelings about her Maths ability, so she was particularly impressed with the positivity at Mathnasium centres and the emphasis on giving praise where praise is due. “I’m so impressed by the sheer volume and quality of both the education and management resources available to franchisees. 

“The training materials, and Mathnasium UK’s amazing Education Manager, Zoe, gave me the confidence to teach Maths to children within a couple of weeks!  Her ability to teach new franchisees is fantastic.”

With a long background in the franchise sector, Louise revealed herself as an industry disruptor in 2010 when she took a chimney-sweeping business and professionalised it with a bespoke CRM system that made the back-office function far more efficient.

She franchised it as Wilkins Chimney Sweep and helped turn it into the success it is today with 34 branches all over the country. “I fell in love with franchising,” she says. “I’m a processes person and I enjoy making businesses more successful.”

John Preston, Director of Mathnasium in the UK, says: “We’re so pleased Louise chose to join our UK management team. “Her skills and experience will accelerate franchisee growth and further enhance the support we provide to the network as we grow.”

 For more information on the Mathnasium franchise opportunity, visit the profile page>>