Biscuitville Fresh Southern has promoted Jeff Linville, Jess Williams, Blake Jennings and Alon Vanterpool to new leadership roles, effective immediately. Biscuitville is a family-owned restaurant business serving North Carolina and Southern Virginia communities from 67 locations. Biscuitville is widely known for its authentic, Southern cooking that’s fresh, scratch-made and uses locally sourced ingredients.
Jeff Linville has been named Chief Operations Officer (COO) and appointed to the company’s Executive Team. Jeff will continue to focus on supporting the company’s growth strategy as they enter new markets. He will also provide leadership and people development initiatives to enhance career opportunities. As COO, Jeff will also be implementing new operational strategies to improve efficiencies that will result in a better guest experience. Linville joined Biscuitville in August 2020 as vice president of Operations, with responsibility for all field operations. He will continue to report to Biscuitville president and CEO Kathie Niven.
Jess Williams has been promoted to Chief People Officer (CPO) and also appointed to the company’s Executive Team. In this expanded role, Jess will oversee People Excellence and Organizational Design, paving the road for the company’s growth with employee engagement, organizational systems and policies, compensation modeling and succession planning. Jess, who formerly was vice president of People Excellence, has served on Biscuitville’s Leadership Team since 2019 and will continue to report to President & CEO Kathie Niven.
Blake Jennings has been named vice president of Development and Facilities and will become a member of the Leadership Team. Blake, grandson of the founder, Maurice Jennings, joined Biscuitville in 2018 as Director of Development. He is responsible for building the development pipeline, positioning Biscuitville for accelerated growth, with a forecast of 10 new restaurant openings or more per year. In his new role, Jennings is also now responsible for the leadership of the Facilities team. Jennings will continue to report to Biscuitville Chief Financial Officer Kevin Bennett.
Alon Vanterpool has been named director of Internal Communications with a responsibility of communicating with the 2,000-plus employees who work across the Biscuitville organization. Within this role, she will be developing an integrated enterprise-wide internal communications strategy that delivers clear information to Biscuitville team members – in a manner that builds confidence, trust, and excitement. She has served since 2019 as a marketing manager focusing on public relations, paid media and external brand messaging. In her new role, she will continue to report to Kristie Mitchell, vice president of Brand and Marketing.
“The promotions of Jeff Linville, Blake Jennings, Jess Williams and Alon Vanterpool demonstrate the tremendous depth of internal talent we have within the Biscuitville organization today,” Niven says. “We are very pleased to announce these new roles for these strong leaders already within the ranks of our Biscuitville family.
