How Taking Calculated Risks Helped Warren Thompson Grow a $1 Billion Business

When Warren Thompson visits new managers and leaders of the restaurants owned by his company, he often asks: Do you describe yourself as a corporate person or an entrepreneur?

It isn’t a trick question. No real right or wrong. But Thompson (MBA ’83) clearly favors one answer.

“I’m looking for that person who would say they’re more of an entrepreneurial-type person, meaning they’re going to take calculated risks to move the company ahead,” he said during a recent interview at the Reston, Virginia, headquarters of Thompson Hospitality Corp.

“That’s why you’re here today,” he told a recent gathering of managers. “You’re willing to question the status quo. You’re willing to break the mold and come up with a different or better way to do it, and I don’t want you to lose that.’”

That kind of active, adventurous spirit has served Thompson well. During a discussion with The Darden Report of his business philosophies, entrepreneurship and leadership, a theme emerges again and again of taking aggressive-but-smart chances that lead to bigger successes and more opportunities.

• In a partnership selling produce with his father at age 15, Thompson figured he could expand the business and get more apples and peaches, faster, from Nelson County orchards to the market in Tidewater if he bought a school bus for a bargain price and removed the seats to create storage space. The idea worked.
• While managing the airport foodservice business for Marriott in the late 1980s, Thompson led a team that opened the first national brand restaurants like Pizza Hut and Taco Bell in LaGuardia and JFK airports in New York. The venture was a hit. Today, such restaurants are a staple in most airports.
• Thompson Hospitality launched in 1992 with the purchase of more than 30 Big Boy’s restaurants from Marriott, converting them to the Shoney’s brand. When those restaurants failed to grow as planned, Thompson had to act. He accelerated his long-range plan to get into the contract foodservice business. That move paid off, and the contract side of the company would become its major source of revenue, supercharged by a partnership with Compass Group starting in 1997.

Fifty years and countless business experiences and lessons since the produce-selling venture, Thompson, 65, finds himself at the other end of the career journey, contemplating retirement, succession-planning and life after building a company that has grown into the nation’s largest minority owned foodservice and facilities management company.

Thompson Hospitality employs more than 6,000 people and generates annual revenue of nearly $1 billion. It owns more than 70 restaurants (including investments in Ralph Sampson’s American Tap Room and The Ridley in Charlottesville), provides contract foodservice and facilities management services to higher education and corporate partners. Warren Thompson is president and chairman of the board.

“When you start a company, you’ve got more time than money. When you’re getting toward the end of the company, you have more money than you have time,” he said of his current perspective. “I have to make every minute count.”

That motivation comes from both ends of the life cycle. Thompson and his wife, Danielle, started a family later than most, and he brightens immediately when talking about his 4-year-old daughter, Skylar, whom the couple adopted when she was an infant. He describes her both as a typical, energetic pre-kindergartner who loves “Bluey” and ballet, and as a curious daughter of a business executive who sometimes accompanies him to restaurants and spots things that need attention.

“She’s becoming a part of the business now,” Thompson chuckles. “She goes around and greets. She’ll ask them how the meal is, or she’ll go with her mother and come back and give me a report.”

On the other end of the spectrum, Thompson, who played basketball during his undergraduate years at Hampden-Sydney College before attending the Darden School of Business, is sobered by two hip replacements this year and more so by the loss of old friends.

“Both roommates that I had in college have passed,” he said. “Events like that in life cause you to think even more about it. I want the company to be able to thrive and move to the next level, and I believe someone else will be better positioned to do that.”

Planning for Succession

Developing a plan for the future of Thompson Hospitality is a little behind the original timeline. The Covid pandemic paused that activity as the company – like so many in hospitality, foodservice and related industries – had to find ways to maneuver when the pandemic decimated the service economy.

Here again, Thompson said lessons from his earliest entrepreneurial experiences provided guidance. That first job with his father wasn’t just about fruit. They also marketed vegetables and raised hogs for a meatpacking plant. The diversified income stream made sense then, and it made sense later, as Thompson Hospitality expanded from its start as a restaurant company to a firm that offers services to multiple sectors, operates restaurants and, now, hotels.

When the pandemic arrived, the strategy provided stability.

“When Covid hit, we didn’t go out of business like many restaurant companies,” he said. “I learned that at a very early age – not to have everything in one basket.”

Once the economy leveled, Thompson returned attention to what was next for him and for the company he established 32 years ago.

The first phase has another Darden connection. Chief Financial Officer Ali Azimi plans to retire at the end of 2024 and will be succeeded by Joe Lawler (EMBA ‘18), currently senior vice president for strategy and finance.

“He happens to be a Darden alum, so it worked out perfectly,” Thompson said with a smile.

Succession plans are being developed for other key leadership positions, and Thompson expects to transition from his role in the next three to five years.

“It’s tough. I don’t ever see myself totally out of the company, but taking a backseat position. And I think we’ll be in a good position to do that,” he said.

A Foundation to Build On

In a lifetime of learning-while-doing, Thompson said his parents, Fred and Ruby Thompson, provided the foundation that enabled his successes.

“I learned early on just watching my parents,” he said.

Thompson pictured with his sister, Benita, and brother, Fred, during his 1983 Darden School graduation ceremony.

Both were public school teachers. The family lived in the 1960s and ‘70s in what was then a still mostly segregated community of Windsor, located near Suffolk, Virginia, in Isle of Wight County. Thompson recalled working at a local hardware store where Black employees were not allowed to run a cash register until his mother and her sister confronted the management. “She was gutsy,” he said of his mother.

In addition to showing him business basics and instilling an indefatigable work ethic in his son, Fred Thompson Sr. transferred a competitive drive that would stick with the younger Thompson through his career.

“My father was my best friend growing up. He was a math teacher. We played math games, we played sports, but it was competitive,” he said. “I’m very competitive as well. If I get into a business, I want to dominate.”

Thompson has a sister, Benita Thompson-Byas and brother, Fred Thompson Jr., both of whom also serve in executive leadership roles with Thompson Hospitality and have been with the company nearly since its 1992 founding.

His parents both earned degrees from Virginia State University. That connection – and his interest in encouraging diverse students to pursue college degrees and consider careers in business and entrepreneurship – continues to motivate Thompson to provide some $4 million annually in scholarships and financial support to HBCUs, historically black colleges and universities.

‘Paying It Forward’

Thompson’s company also prides itself on using certified diverse suppliers on some 30% of its purchases. It purchases from and mentors small businesses, and women- and minority-owned companies. “Our own experience has shown us the importance and power of supplier diversity, and we are committed to paying it forward,” Benita Thompson-Byas told Black Enterprise magazine in 2023.

Warren Thompson said his company is deeply committed to being a diverse and inclusive workplace – principles ingrained in him by his life experiences, including seeing the effects of racial discrimination on his parents and during his own career. Today’s widening societal divisions – including over the value of diversity in business and other settings – troubles Thompson.

His response at Thompson Hospitality and with its partners and clients: Show the business value.

“I always say in our company, we have never mentioned the words ‘diversity program.’ I don’t ever recall having a meeting to say, let’s explore our diversity numbers,” he said. “It’s just a part of our culture. Our business model has always been that we present a better option to the customer. We say to that client, we understand your customer better than anyone else. So, we make the business case, not the diversity case, as to why.”

Darden Connections and Influences

A former member of the Darden School Foundation Board of Trustees and founder of the Dean’s Diversity Advisory Council, Thompson established the Warren M. Thompson Scholarship at Darden, supports the Marietta and Sherwood Frey Scholarship, the Black Business Student Forum and the Darden Annual Fund.

Thompson said he still draws on Darden student experiences from the early ‘80s, citing enduring case-study lessons from an organizational development class led by Professor Alex Horniman that required students to consider multiple perspectives to solve problems.

“That’s exactly what we do in this company. Now, when we decide to create a new restaurant or a new menu, I get people around the table from different backgrounds, different races, different genders. I want them all at the table so I can get that perspective,” Thompson said. “It’s very much like a study group trying to look at a case.”

One recipient of the Warren M. Thompson Scholarship, Katie Winebarger, said receiving the scholarship was life-changing.

“This scholarship is the sole reason I was able to consider Darden – and business school – as a viable option for me,” she said.

Winebarger, who graduated in 2022, currently works for Bain & Company in San Francisco. She said the Darden experience enabled by Thompson’s scholarship helps her in her consulting work “in every single way.”

“The same skills and habits that Darden does such an amazing job at cultivating – learning from and coaching your teammates where possible, balancing multiple demanding courses (cases) and leadership roles, and heavy involvement with activities that drive culture and experience – are exactly the skills that have enabled me to enjoy my experience at Bain and contribute meaningfully to the case and office experience, which are so highly valued at Bain as well,” she said.

Passionate Personnel

Even as he plans for next steps professionally and personally, Thompson keeps generating ideas for his company. They’re the lifeblood of his firm, and the reason why he loves hiring managers with entrepreneurial spirit.

Thompson pictured with Mark Copanzzi, vice president of retail operations for Thompson Hospitality, at The Ridley in Charlottesville. (Photo by Caroline Mackey)

In the Hilton Homewood Suites hotel developed adjacent to the Reston headquarters, Thompson Hospitality has created a training and development campus in a working hotel for chefs, managers and other positions. Additional hotels could be in Thompson’s future, as well as convenience stores. Thompson mentions the possibility that part of his company could eventually go public, though he quickly adds – as part of his succession planning – that he has no interest in overseeing a public entity.

However the plans unfold, Thompson knows well what kind of people will keep the momentum going for Thompson Hospitality – those thinking creatively about how to do things different or better.

“An entrepreneur who’s running his or her business, if they don’t love it or enjoy it or get excited about it, they’re not going to be successful,” he said. “You’ve got to have the passion. You can’t wait to wake up every morning and go do it. Then you’ve got to figure out how to do it better than anybody else.”