Leisa: Hello, I’m Leisa Holland-Nelson and welcome to another edition of Women Mean Business, where we’re going to take you up close and personal with extraordinary women doing extraordinary things. My guest today is Molly Voorhees, President of Beck’s Prime, Houston’s leading fast casual restaurant. Molly, welcome to Women Mean Business.

Molly: Thank you Leisa, it’s great to be here.

Leisa: I’m guessing when you were growing up you didn’t dream of running Beck’s Prime. Tell us.

Molly: I dreamed of eating Beck’s Prime.

Leisa: Yeah, but running it is another story.

Molly: Running it is different.

Leisa: Tell us how you got to be the President of Beck’s Prime.

Molly: You know, it was certainly my dad started Beck’s Prime back in 1985 with Mike Knapp and John Storms and I was always very proud of the business. I went and worked in Silicon Valley, high-paced .com bubble – I guess the first one, now we’re in the second one – and it was such an exciting time. Long, long hours and doing something new and it was high energy, fast-paced and went to business school and started thinking about what is a career? Where could I go and do something that I really care about the company and the product? Where could I go have a life and find some balance; at the same time be a hard-driving entrepreneur? And I started thinking about how much I cared about Beck’s Prime and what was the future off this company and I cared about it in a way that I think is unique. And I had the opportunity to come back and help grow the business.

And so that’s really how I got there; it doesn’t always – sounds a little roundabout but I think business school sometimes is an opportunity to rethink where you’re headed and what you’re doing and start your career in a different direction. I definitely have used a lot of the skills from the high tech industry and brought them because so much in business is transferrable. I think we forget that sometimes but are you organized? Can you get something done? Can you persuade people to get on your team? All of those skills you can transfer anywhere, I just think sometimes we get stuck in a particular area. So jumped over to the restaurant industry, it’s really fun; we’re sort of in the entertainment business. We get amazing emails from customers telling us how much they loved the Bill’s Burger they had or the salad you ate last week and that’s exciting.

Leisa: Fabulous, thank you for sharing. There you have it, another extraordinary woman doing extraordinary things. I’m Leisa Holland-Nelson, President and Co-founder of ContentActive, Houston’s leading web and mobile design and development company. You can find me at ContactActive.com or follow me on Twitter @LHNelson. We’ll be back again next week with another edition of Women Mean Business.