Cole, COO and president of Focus Brands, North America and former president of Cinnabon, worked at Hooters for 15 years, starting as a hostess at age 17 and eventually getting promoted to vice president by the time she was 26.

A star employee, at 19 she was asked by Hooters to go to Australia to help open a franchise location there, and she spent much of her early 20s training global employees and managers, Fortune reports.

Though she never earned a bachelor's degree, she eventually went on to get her MBA, according to Fortune. She told the magazine:

"I was lucky that Hooters wasn't a more sophisticated company because there's no way someone my age would have had those chances. It wasn't like people graduating from Ivy League schools were dying to get a corporate job at Hooters."