For Jennifer Schuler and Hillary Frei, serving in the C-suite at Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream — an Ohio-based franchise celebrating its 80th anniversary this year — seems like a matter of destiny.
After all, their careers have intertwined throughout decades, starting with their first gig out of business school: Schuler and Frei were interns at General Mills in Minneapolis at the same time.
“It was really foundational learning. We got our MBA and then we got our MBA in marketing from General Mills,” Schuler said. “So we both went through that experience and then both took some different paths from there.”
Schuler later became a franchisee and CMO for Wetzel’s Pretzels, then CEO of that Pasadena, Calif.-based snack chain. Frei — who had crossed multiple industries after General Mills, eventually running the e-commerce business as general manager at FAO Schwarz — became CMO of Wetzel’s on Schuler’s recommendation, after the latter had already departed the company.
When Schuler took the gig as CEO at Handel’s, Frei was a natural pick to follow her to the brand and serve as chief marketing officer.
“It’s truly delightful for our careers to be intersecting again, because we have that shared history and a real shared approach in terms of how we think about brands that we’re bringing here to Handel’s,” Schuler said.
Perhaps it was destiny, too, that these two strong women leaders are helming a brand that was founded by a woman; Alice Handel started the business by serving fresh-made ice cream at her husband’s gas station in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1945. It started scaling in the mid-1980s, and today has around 150 locations across the country making ice cream fresh in-house every day and serving it out of a walk-up window.
Frei said what appealed about Handel’s was that it reminded her of other iconic American brands that she had worked on, like FAO Schwarz and Cheerios.
“A brand is going to endure over generations; you’re just holding that brand and you’re stewarding it for a short period of time, really, in the life of the whole brand,” Schuler said. “And I think in particular for hospitality brands, you can’t disconnect from your roots, because when you do, you lose the soul of the business.”
To that end, Frei plans to lean into the rich heritage of Handel’s, and particularly the fact that most of its loyal guests see it not as a chain they visit, but as their local ice cream shop led by franchisees who are a part of the community.
“This brand and this product are so meaningful to people who grew up with it, like the emotional connection that people have to it, which is why I’m in marketing: to really connect people with the things that matter in their lives,” she said, adding that the company’s marketing will especially play up the 80th anniversary this year.
Schuler and Frei see plenty of white space for Handel’s to grow into and are prioritizing local franchisees who can embed the brand into their neighborhoods. They also believe there’s a great opportunity to connect Handel’s to younger consumers who create those lifelong emotional connections when they get ice cream with friends or family members, often as part of celebrations or during formative seasons like the summer.
Outside of that marketing work, Schuler said the biggest priority is to set franchisees up for success by modernizing the brand and making it more efficient, without sacrificing quality.
“Our responsibility is to the guest, to give them the tradition of the ice cream that they know and love,” she said. “We [also] have a responsibility to the franchisees, to help them maintain not only a profitable business, but one that gives them a strong return on investment and the ability to scale. And that’s a responsibility I don’t take lightly. … It’s not pressure, but a privilege, because it’s an opportunity to use this brand not only to delight communities but to help business owners change the trajectory of their lives, to build generational wealth for their families.”
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