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Lynne Zappone is chief talent and HR officer at Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, a company founded by Alvin C. Copeland Sr. in 1972 and named after Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, the New York City detective from the 1971 movie "The French Connection."
The company is known for its spicy New Orleans-style chicken and buttermilk biscuits. As of October 2013, it had restaurants operating in 2,187 locations in the U.S., Guam, Puerto Rico, the Cayman Islands and 27 foreign countries. America's Favorite Chicken Co., or AFC Enterprises, purchased Popeyes and Churches Chicken in 1972.
Zappone oversees a staffof 10 and spends about 10 percent of her time visiting the company's restaurants. Before she entered the HR profession, she taught grade school, and education is a thread woven throughout her career. She has played diverse roles in organizational development, training, talent development and global learning. HR Magazine sat down with her at the corporate office located outside of Atlanta to talk about HR's role in training, her definition of success and her appearance on the television show "Undercover Boss."
Early in your career, you taught sixth grade in an urban part of Jacksonville, Fla. Any lessons you learned that inform you as an HR leader?
My ability to have a conversation with anyone is something I learned from a bunch of 12-year-old kids in 1986. I realized then that I enjoyed helping people figure out problems, connecting with them professionally and being approachable to everyone. I was only 22, and parents were asking me for advice! So my capacity to connect probably started then, along with being able to find creative ways to get information across to people and keep the message simple.
Tell us about your transition to HR.
One summer I attended an in-service teacher training that was very experiential, and I was intrigued by the learning development process and the woman leading it. I said to myself, "I don't know what she does,...