What does it really take to move from founder control to strategic optionality?

In this episode of The Breakout CEO podcast, Jeff Holman sits down with Heather Griffith Barber, founder of Queen of Wraps, to unpack the real decisions behind building a company that buyers take seriously.

Heather shares her 18-year journey growing a business from a scrappy family operation into a multi-company platform that ultimately attracted an unsolicited private equity offer. Along the way, she breaks down the choices most founders never think about early enough; location strategy, loss of leaders, customer lifetime value, and the leadership shift required when a business starts to outgrow its founder.

This conversation goes beyond tactics. It’s also about how women founders and CEOs build institutional credibility, create leverage, and design businesses that don’t depend on them to survive.

You’ll hear:

1. Why “location” became a growth accelerator not a vanity move
2. How treating the core product as a loss leader unlocked long-term customer value
3. What happens when a founder steps back and the business gets stronger
4. How Heather navigated personal inflection points while maintaining long-term strategic focus
5. Why strategic optionality, not growth at all costs, ultimately led to a successful exit

This episode is especially relevant for:

1. Woman founders scaling beyond the early hustle
2. CEOs thinking about governance, leverage, and exit readiness
3. Entrepreneurs building lifestyle businesses that still want real optionality
4. Operators curious about what private equity actually looks for in founder-led companies

Heather now focuses on helping more women founders gain confidence, knowledge, and long-term financial independence through entrepreneurship and exits, so success like this becomes normal, not novel.

Listen in to hear what it really takes to build a business that works with or without you.

Check out Heather's work at https://www.heathergriffithbarber.com/ and https://www.buy-scale-sell.com/.

Say hello to Heather!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heathergriffithbarber/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buy_scale_sell/

Think you'd be a great guest on the show? Apply https://go.intellectualstrategies.com/