Founder's Story - From Law Firm Founder to Global CEO: The Unlearning That Changed Everything | Ep. 307 with Mina Haque CEO of Tony Roma

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Mina Haque shares her unconventional path from running her own law firm to leading one of the most iconic restaurant brands in the world. The conversation explores how entrepreneurial problem-solving prepared her to transform a legacy company, how nostalgia and modernization can coexist, and why resilience matters more than virality in today’s economy. Key Discussion Points Mina explains how being an entrepreneur trained her to operate without a playbook, constantly solving problems and building from scratch, skills she now applies in leading Tony Roma’s global transformation. She discusses the privilege and responsibility of stewarding a 54-year-old brand that spans five continents, balancing nostalgia with modernization through smaller footprints, delivery channels, and digital engagement. At Davos, she introduced the concept of neuroplasticity to frame change as a catalyst for growth, arguing that leaders must design adaptable environments where teams can rewire and learn. She also reflects on unlearning purely mechanical legal thinking to embrace the human and relational side of franchising and long-term partnerships. Takeaways Transferable skills from entrepreneurship, especially problem-solving and adaptability, are powerful assets in corporate leadership. Legacy brands win through resilience, not just rapid growth or social media virality. Modernizing does not mean abandoning identity; it means evolving the delivery while protecting the core story. Change requires leaders to understand both neuroscience and culture, creating systems that support adaptation rather than resist it. Continuous learning, from Davos panels to conversations with younger generations, is a leadership discipline. Closing Thoughts Mina Haque’s leadership philosophy blends law, entrepreneurship, neuroscience, and global brand strategy. Her mission is not just to grow Tony Roma’s, but to position it as a resilient brand built for the next fifty-four years. This episode is a masterclass in adaptability, legacy thinking, and leading through transformation in an unpredictable world. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

So I'm excited to be with you here today. Mohi Mina Hawk. You were just at Davos in Switzerland. I was also there, and I'm sad that I didn't get to listen to your panel at the female quotient. I've heard rave reviews. And I love the female quotient. They always have incredible people.

So we'll talk about that in a second. But first, for the people that may not know, you have a very interesting background being an attorney with your own practice entrepreneur to then going into the corporate world as CEO of Tony Romas. A lot of times the people that we talk to are doing the opposite direction. So I love to understand what carried over it from being an entrepreneur and being an attorney into your current role. I'm a firm believer of transferable skills.

And being an entrepreneur, it doesn't come with any. guidelines, but it trains you very well because you need to be in a problem solving mode. You need to create. You need to build. And being an entrepreneur gave me the best training for now coming into the corporate world, running Tony Romas and leading the transformation of this 54-year-old brand. I mean, that's a 54 years. Like most companies don't last five, or even two.

So what is that like coming from the outside into? to what I guess you could call a legacy organization. Seriously, it's an enormous privilege, you know, running a 54-year-old brand. Because we're living in a time when we see companies are rising at a very fast pace, but we don't see the companies building a legacy. So being part of a company that have been around for so long went through so many different economic climate and still being able to stand, you know, tall and strong, not only in the United States, but across five continents.

It is an enormous privilege, and I definitely count my blessings every day to lead the transformation. And coming into this brand, I think my task is to build that bridge to share our story, our legacy, what we're known for. We have been known for our ribs for over 54 year. I know there are many market actors now who do serve ribs, but Tony Romis has been a leader. and being able to continue that legacy and share with customers worldwide. Again, it's an enormous privilege. I am repeating myself by saying privilege so many times.

But that is the strength of a 54-year-old brand, and there are just so many lessons you can just take from internally, what happened, you know, what you can do better. And I really like that process building on what we have and making sure that it's here for the next 54 years as well. So when you looked at the first 90 days, you coming into this organization, and I imagine most companies, it's good many times to bring somebody from the outside in because you have a totally different perspective and you just see things differently.

So when you come in here and you know that it's a known brand, it's been around for a long time, however, maybe not everyone remembers it because maybe they moved on to something else, or it's a younger generation, maybe they haven't gone out to eat. So how do you look at keeping the original theme or keeping maybe what made it amazing before at the same time bringing it up to speed to 2026? When I first came in, you know, I divided this whole issue into two parts. One is internally what we have to do, where we need to pay more attention, how we can streamline and maximize our efficiency

and externally being aware that this is a brand that people associate with nostalgia. When I was in Delos last year, many leaders who came to me and who stated, do you know I went to Tony Romance from my first date? So just hearing from, you know, the movers and shakers and decision makers sharing their memories of Tony Wellness,

it validates that you know, need to keep on serving the same product and be able to give people the same type of environment. At the same time, that doesn't mean that you need to keep the restaurant at 10,000 square feet as they remember. It can be 3,000 square feet now because the reality of economics is different. There are many revenue verticals. In restaurants, you don't only generate revenue by sit-down dining anymore. Delivery has been a dominator, especially post-COVID. So making sure that you modernize the brand at the same time, maintain your core identity. I could see that being, being almost a challenge and a gift at the same time. Because I think when you come into something, you want to make a mark,

right? Like everyone wants to have almost like a legacy in the place. Like I want to be remembered here for doing this. Did you look at it that way in terms of like in 50 years from now, you're most likely not still going to be there. Do you want to be remembered at Tony Romis for doing something? Or is it more of I want to be remembered just overall for something not just specific to the company? Firstly, that's a very good question. If I think of the brand's legacy or my particular contribution. I, of course, want to be remembered as someone who turned around the company at an inflection point and positioned it for growth and made it a resilient brand. We hear about the term resilient, right? Resilient economy, resilient brand. That was a recurring

theme this time in the World Economic Forum as well. And that is actually a very important discussion. We see a lot of emerging brands that come up because they've been and viral on social media. You know, the success happens overnight. And then what? So when I think of Tony Romas, I don't think of it as a short-term growth. The company have been around for a very long time.

There are many people before me who put in their effort, time, and energy. My work is to build on that and make sure we remain the resilient brand that we have been known for. We have had our share of challenges, but we definitely bounce back from it. And most of the brands these days,

I feel the growth is fast, the emergence happen pretty fast, and thanks to technology, it's possible. But building a resilient brand is not easy. So when it comes to my legacy and the brand's legacy, I would like Tony Ramos to be known as one of the most resilient brand. You brought up something very interesting. It's this like this TikTok amplification of things

where you could be, I'm just saying TikTok because it seems like the virality greater than most social where a restaurant can be on there and all of a sudden everyone goes, but I wonder how long that does last and then they go to the next thing and the next thing. But at the same time, nostalgia like the 90s is in now, right? Like I think back to like I was, you know, I was not cool in the 90s, but now everyone's doing things that I was doing that. I was not cool. Now I would be cool. So maybe I was born at the wrong point of life. But when you look at combining the marketing of social media with also nostalgia, are you seeing a way to maybe combine all these things to reach a younger demographic? Absolutely. Technology makes it easier now, right? For marketing,

especially, you can be very creative in-house. You don't need a big splashy television ad anymore. Because social media allows you to connect with Gen Zs and millennials. And those are the type of interactions that actually Gen Zs and millennials prefer. You just mentioned about the 90s. Maybe there were things or songs that we like at the time, which we're hearing again. I hear my teenager, like, you know, scroll down the videos. I'm like, wait a minute, how do you know that? That's something from the 90s or the late 80s.

It's the revival, right? And I think social media give us that opportunity. Similarly, I want Tony Romas to bring in the Gen Zs and millennials to try our ribs what we were famous for and be able to give them a product that was enjoyed for so long that they can also enjoy and spread the word about. I am shocked when I hear these songs, by the way, it does excite me. I'm like, oh my gosh, I forgot about that song. I need to go to Spotify and listen to that song. I used to work in the franchise world for a franchisor doing consulting. And I remembered, you know, the challenges and the great parts of working with a lot of these

owners and just seeing their companies grow. And it was so exciting to be in that. I did that for a few years. I know you're also looking to expand out the franchising of Tony Romas. How do you see this not only expanding the fact that you having an entrepreneurial background, you're giving the chance to people to become business owners themselves. Firstly, you know, when it comes to franchising, many fear that it's a one-size-it-all, right? Whether there is a barrier to entry due to cost or due to maintaining the brand standards,

there are so many, it's very regulated and it's also structured in a way we also want to be from a franchisor point of view, maintain the brand consistency. Now, it's like, put my entrepreneur have on, I don't see this is a one-size fiddle, especially for Tony Romance. I try to understand the market. I try to sit down with the franchise partners and see, okay, where can we save the cost so that we can redirect it to a revenue generating department? For equipment, you know, when I first came in and I took over, I saw the list of equipment, my predecessors used to mandate the franchise partners. And I, I, have identified opportunities of many cost savings because some of those equipment were perhaps

overlapping. Some of them were redundant. So designing a system that actually sets franchisees for success, I think that's extremely important. The goal used to be much more about designing a system that everyone will adopt, right? It's take it or leave it. I don't think we can survive in a world now, even in franchising that could be taken or leave it. We need to pivot. We need to adapt. We need to make sure our franchise partners in this specific market that they're operating, they can be successful. I can appreciate that.

I can remembering what I used to have to deal with and I can super appreciate that approach. Let's go to Davos and World Economic Forum. I had such an amazing experience. I'm still like trying to process everything. I told somebody I could have made like a reality TV show about so many things happened from the place we stayed like 65 people were in the I mean it was it was wild like it was such an incredibly amazing and interesting experience I want to know about the panel that you were on at female quotient and this I think you said it was neuroelasticity and I might be saying it incorrectly so the panel was actually called change as a grow you know change as a catalyst for growth because oftentimes we are very nervous about changes. We are apprehensive, right, whether it's an organizational change, whether it's a change in our personal life. So what I did for the panel, I brought in the concept of neuroplasticity. It's a concept,

it's the ability of our brain to wire and rewire information and to learn. So this is not something you would expect a lawyer or a CEO to talk about. This is of course not within my expertise, something you would expect a neurologist or someone who is an expert on brain health. But the reason I specifically brought neuroplasticity into the conversation in this particular panel, because we need to understand the anatomy of our brain and what we can do when it comes to learning. Because sometimes we self-reject ourselves or we self-reject our idea because we want to be very comfortable of what we know, right? We don't want to challenge the learning, the pivoting. It always comes with some type of headache. So I brought in this whole concept into my discourse in

this panel to say, listen, the brain has the ability to learn to rewire information. And it's called neuroplasticity. We need to remember. this when it comes to organizational design. We need to remember this when we're thinking about the work culture. Let's say we're bringing in changes for our employees. Can they adapt? What can we do to help? They may have the ability. Their brain may have the ability, but sometimes work environment can impede that learning. So we need to make the work environment that's more adaptable. So that's an impetus on us, the leaders. How can we make an adaptable work environment? So, these are some of the discussion that I have introduced specifically, and I brought in science and

took a holistic approach to do from my own background, both legal and business, to make this point. I always love learning about neuroplasticity. And I wonder for you, was there something that you had to unlearn when you transition from your law firm back to more of the corporate environment as CEO? Was there something maybe you had to? unlearn or maybe something you had to tweak because it didn't serve you in this position. Yeah. You know, it's a continuous process of learning and unlearning. As an attorney, we are all, it's kind of mechanical, right? There are a set of rules. There are facts and you apply the rules to the facts. Different process. We argue very mechanical. I think for me,

it was unlearning sometimes what has been my blessing, which is logical thinking, can also work against me in a restaurant industry and a franchise industry because it's very much driven by the relationships. So one part where I think I had to unlearn was those methodical way of thinking and trying to understand the human element, the human stories, how long a franchisee has been in the system. I think that has been an enormous training and a blessing in a way to understand the franchise partners who have been in the system for almost 40 years. We have partners who have been around for a very long time with us. I mean, that's amazing.

It seems like the most successful people I find like yourself are always learning. And they never would say, I am the expert because they feel there always is more things to learn. When you look at habits that have made you successful or brought you to where you are now, are there habits that you've done for a long time or maybe new habits that you've started that you're like, wow, like this has really helped me in my career. For me, growing up, I used to move to many different places. I went through different schools. The ability to adapt is extremely important.

and sometimes you would find yourself in a new environment, and that comes with learning. And, you know, the whole habit of, yes, I don't know everything. I want to learn. And I do have that genuine desire to learn, which is one of the reason Davos for me is great, not because I go there to contribute in a panel because I learn so much.

Even when you walk on the promenade, you hear all the conversation that comes within your ear shot, And you're like, oh, I did not know this. I just got a food of thought to think about. So learning is a hobby. You know, I always seek and learn from anyone. I make the confession, but I also learn from my children every day. Sometimes they're your best teachers.

We had somebody on before who when I asked her a similar question, she said, I have a mentor who's 20 years old. And she's like, because I don't know about the things of that generation. She didn't have kids. She's like, I didn't know. and I needed someone to tell me those things. And I was like, that is like what you're saying. It's not that I need to learn from someone who's older than me, who's wiser.

I can learn from all different people. And I can really appreciate what you just mentioned around also moving different places, learning different people. I think if more people did that, the world would be a better place. But if people want to get in touch with you, though, by the way, I had a great conversation. I'm sad that we missed each other in Davos next year. Next year, I want to learn more about all the things that you talk about.

But if people want to get in touch with you, though, maybe they want to follow along your journey of the things that you just did at the World Economic Forum. How can they do so? So follow me on Instagram. I have an account. It's called Attorney Nina, D.C. I tried to share my journey, both leadership, legal. You can also see some personal tidbits.

That would be the best way to get in touch, connect with things. me on LinkedIn. I'm available on LinkedIn as well. I will also give you an email address. It's Mina, M-I-N-A-at-A-at-A-Turney.com. Well, attorney, CEO, Mina Hawk, I appreciate you being here so much. I was mentioning when we started how incredible your wall is. You have so many great things up there and you said that, you know, your bar license meant so much to you. And I always wanted to attend law school. No, I want to go to school for law, but I don't want to go to law school. But amazing. I really appreciate being here today. And I can't wait to visit Tony Romas. I want some ribs. So bad. I'm excited. I'm excited for the expansion. But thank you for joining us

on Founder's Story. Oh, thank you so much. And please visit Tony Romas. You will find us in Las Vegas. We are near Disneyland in Anahad, California. We are in multiple locations. And there are several locations all across the world. So please come and try our ribs.