Kobie Baker
Operations executive and leadership coach. The common thread is people at their best.
I’m a father, a cook, and someone who has spent more than twenty years accountable for performance and the numbers behind it, first in college athletics, in coaching and administration, then in multi-unit business operations. Today I work with franchise and independent business owners on how their businesses actually run. Home is Frisco, Texas, where the most important team I’m part of is the one with my son.
How I work
The settings change, but the work doesn’t. Diagnose at the unit level rather than the average, because the bottom quartile and the top quartile rarely have the same problem. Build the scorecard the operator owns rather than receives, and a review cadence they can hold on their own. Much of my work has been in underperforming portfolios, through owners I don’t directly manage, which means it runs on trust and influence rather than authority.
What coaching taught me
Most of what makes a team win is the same everywhere: clear roles, real accountability, good decisions under pressure, and a rhythm that holds when the leader isn’t in the room. The move from athletics to business operations wasn’t really a pivot. The work was the same. The scoreboard just changed. I still coach. The teams are just owners and leadership groups now.
In the kitchen
I also cook. I studied culinary arts with a focus on Mississippi and Louisiana cooking, inspired by my grandmother, whose table brought people together. What I love most is what happens around the food. When people enjoy something I’ve made, it becomes part of a memory, and I get to be a part of that. Cooking and coaching come from the same place for me: you put something of yourself into the work, give it to someone else, and see what it does for them. I share that side of my life through Story From The Kitchen.
Find me
My full work history is on LinkedIn.