Meet the Leadership Team: Shawna Watts

The Gents Place Franchise has a powerful team with an extensive resume covering every aspect of the business. The support that every location receives encompasses training, operations, marketing, retail, and much more. This is the first in an ongoing series that will introduce you to various members of the leadership team that will help you build and grow your Gents Place franchise.

Shawna Watts was originally born in San Antonio, Texas, and moved to Canyon Lake, Texas, before a move to Denver, Colorado around her high school years. She loved Colorado and eventually ended up going to the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she majored in film studies. She imagined herself as a producer, as she very much liked running things and keeping things on schedule, but she didn’t feel that she had to go into the film when graduating. She completely bought into the school of “study what you want and the work will follow.”

Shawna first began working at Nordstrom, where over eight years she worked her way up the ranks and blended her task orientation with the empathy, discretion, and customer service so encouraged by that company. She eventually moved to Chicago to work for a psychologically-oriented sales training company. She was there for three years when the opportunity to work at Rascal came along.

She had followed the rise of The Gents Place over the years and was familiar with the passion and integrity with which the brand was being built. The idea of being able to work on the ground floor of something big, with quality ingredients, and a team that valued cultural fit above all else really resonated with her, and under her watch, Rascal has grown from 3 products (the original pomade, hair wash, and hair repair), to six in the last 6 months, with three more due in the first half of 2018.

Shawna is currently based in Chicago, where Strategic-partner Peter Terracina will be launching the first Chicago Gents Place club in November, and often has the opportunity to visit other TGP team members at existing locations in addition to some of the leadership team in San Antonio, her hometown. Her goals for the future are clear: continue to grow the Rascal brand by pushing the envelope on premium retail products used exclusively in the quickly-expanding TGP locations.

Shawna is pictured with her favorite Gents Place value, which is Work with Passion.