The 1989 alumna joined the Greensboro, N.C.-based restaurant company in 2011 as its chief brand officer.
Kathie S. Niven, a member of Elon's Class of 1989, has been named president of Greensboro, N.C.-based Biscuitville, a family-owned restaurant company founded in 1966 that now operates 54 locations in North Carolina and Virginia.
Niven, who graduated from Elon with a degree in English and minored in communications, joined Biscuitville in 2011 as the company's chief brand officer and has headed the restaurant chain's brand vision and growth plan. As part of the company’s strategy, she oversaw the creation of Biscuitville’s brand positioning, which encompassed logo development, restaurant redesign, packaging, employee uniforms and trademarking.
Niven spearheaded the design of the company’s new People Excellence department as well as a new Menu Management Assembly process, which produced the most successful promotional product-launch in company history – the Spicy Chicken and Honey Biscuit. She introduced an in-house agency model at Biscuitville by building a team responsible for all communications and marketing initiatives.
“Biscuitville is proud of its heritage as a local, family-owned business, and we had to look no further than our own front door when considering the best candidate to serve as our president,” said Burney Jennings '87, chief executive officer of Biscuitville and a member of Elon's Board of Trustees. “Kathie may not have Jennings as her last name, however, she certainly feels like family at Biscuitville.”
Before joining Biscuitville, Niven served at vice president for field marketing for Quiznos Corp. and had been a marketing executive with RTM/Arby's Roast Beef Corp., Burger King Corp. and Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corp. Her post-graduate studies and professional development included coursework in leadership, branding and strategy at the Center for Creative Leadership, the Kenan Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill and Design Thinking at Harvard University.