Amanda Leigh Walker

Amanda Leigh Walker's Biography

Co-founder of Lord of the Fries | Business Alignment Consultant | Keynote Speaker

Co-founder of Lord of the Fries, which Amanda Leigh Walker helped grow from one food van into a franchise network of more than 35 locations across Australia and New Zealand. Her work spans entrepreneurship, franchising, leadership, founder identity, operations, systems, sustainable scale, emotional mastery, Human Design and purpose-led leadership.

Amanda Leigh Walker is an entrepreneur, speaker and business advisor who has built, scaled and exited one of Australia's best-known plant-based franchise brands, and understands what growth demands from both the business and the human being leading it.

As co-founder of Lord of the Fries, the Southern Hemisphere's largest plant-based fast food franchise, Amanda scaled a purpose-driven family business, built with her co-founder and his brother, from a single Melbourne food van into a network of 35+ locations and over 300 staff across Australia and New Zealand, plus a retail range of frozen Mac and Cheese packages sold in major supermarkets nationally.

Her journey spans two decades of entrepreneurship, franchising, brand building, operations and leadership. After navigating COVID, the end of a marriage and an investor-led exit from the business she'd spent over two decades building, Amanda rebuilt her life and career, turning hard-won experience into a thriving new body of work for founders and leaders.

Today, through her signature Soul → Self → Systems → Scale framework, she coaches and mentors founders and business owners to build companies that are profitable, scalable and personally aligned. She is also cofounder of SIFT (Should I Franchise This?), a franchise-readiness consultancy, and of Power Woman, a women's personal development company.

Her keynotes explore founder identity, sustainable growth, values-led leadership, franchising and culture, and what it takes to scale a business without losing yourself, or the soul of what you created.

A TEDx speaker, Master Life Coach, NLP Practitioner, Meditation Teacher and Human Design Analyst, known for her warmth, humour and disarming honesty, Amanda combines commercial intelligence with deeply human storytelling.

Based in Melbourne, originally from Toronto.

To enquire about Amanda Leigh Walker for your event contact Helene Greenham directly – helene@platinumspeakers.com.au

Speaking Topics Include

One Van, 35+ Stores, Everything In Between

Building the brand, surviving the pressure, and becoming more than the business.

Amanda co-founded Lord of the Fries from a single food van and helped build it into an award-winning franchise network across Australia and New Zealand. This keynote takes audiences inside the full founder journey: the exhilarating beginning, the complicated middle, and the courageous act of beginning again. Raw, insightful and ultimately uplifting.

Best for: Founder conferences, family-business events, franchise networks, leadership conferences, women in business and entrepreneurial communities.

The CEO Shift

Becoming the leader your next level of business requires

Founders often begin by doing everything: solving every problem, holding every relationship. That resourcefulness builds the business, but eventually it can become the very thing that limits it. Amanda explores the internal transformation from founder to CEO, the shift from holding everything together to building an organisation that can stand on its own.

Best for: Founder conferences, women in business, emerging CEOs, entrepreneurial leadership programs, franchise networks and scale-up communities.

Scale Without Losing Yourself

Your business has KPIs. But what about you?

Amanda introduces S4²: Soul, Self, Systems and Scale, her framework for building a company without abandoning the person behind it. Drawing on nearly two decades scaling Lord of the Fries, this keynote gives audiences the personal capacity, self-knowledge and business infrastructure required to hold meaningful growth.

Best for: Leadership conferences, executive teams, founder events, franchise networks, people and culture programs and women's leadership events.

Know Before You Grow (Should I Franchise This?)

The questions every founder should answer before turning one business into a network.

Franchising can multiply a strong business. It can also multiply every weakness already inside it. Using her SIFT franchise-readiness diagnostic, Amanda helps founders examine whether the concept, the commercial model and the founder are truly ready for expansion, before other people's livelihoods depend on the answer.

Best for: Franchise expos, founder conferences, business associations, emerging franchisors, multi-site businesses and franchise-industry events.

When Business Is Family

How to build something together without losing the business, the relationship, or yourself.

Amanda spent nearly two decades building Lord of the Fries with her former husband. In this candid keynote, she explores the realities of building a business with someone you love, and the structures every family business needs before pressure, growth or conflict tests the relationship.

Best for: Family-business conferences, founders in partnership, professional advisory firms, franchise networks and women in business.

When Standards Slip

Why capable people stop performing, and what leaders often misunderstand about it.

Across more than 35 locations, Amanda learned that declining performance can signal unclear expectations, broken systems, low trust, or a person who no longer has the capacity to meet the role. This practical keynote gives leaders a clearer way to diagnose what sits beneath declining standards, before frustration becomes disengagement.

Best for: Leadership teams, franchise networks, retail and hospitality groups, multi-site organisations and people and culture events.

The Irreplaceable Leader

What human judgement, intuition and trust still do better than technology.

As organisations race to adopt AI, Amanda invites leaders to examine the capabilities that become more valuable, not less, when technology accelerates: judgement, discernment, intuition, creativity, courage and trust. Drawing on two decades of high-stakes decisions as a founder and franchisor.

Best for: Corporate conferences, leadership events, executive teams, future-of-work programs and people and culture audiences.

Own the Outcome

How to think like a CEO wherever you sit in the business.

Amanda has experienced business from every side: as a founder, franchisor, employer, franchise adviser and business advisor. This energetic and practical keynote shows people how to take greater ownership of their role without overstepping their authority or working themselves into exhaustion.

Best for: Company conferences, leadership programs, emerging leaders, franchise networks, multi-site businesses, retail and hospitality teams.

You Bought a Business, Not a Job

The CEO mindset every franchisee needs to build a valuable business.

Buying a franchise gives you a brand, a model, systems and support. It does not remove the need to lead. This keynote helps franchisees step out of passive participation and into active business leadership, understanding what the franchisor provides and what only the franchisee can own.

Best for: Franchise conferences, network events, franchisee development days, emerging franchisors and multi-site operators.