Founder | Auntie Anne’s Pretzels
Anne Beiler is a speaker and author that inspires others with her authentic stories and life experiences about nearly losing everything personally, overcoming the pain, blame, and shame from her past, and building an international corporation. Anne is best known as the founder of Auntie Anne’s Hand-Rolled Soft Pretzels, the world’s largest pretzel franchise with over 1,800 locations, however, her journey to become a leading female entrepreneur began years before the first pretzel was ever rolled.
It started when Anne and her husband Jonas experienced any parent’s worst nightmare – the devastating loss of a child. This propelled Anne into many years of darkness, despair, and depression. Everything in her fairytale life began to fall apart and she nearly lost everything, including her marriage. But her story didn’t end there. In fact, it was just beginning. It was through counseling that she and Jonas found healing and restoration. Their experience created a desire to help other hurting families and led Jonas to begin a community counseling center that offered free services. To help fund the center, Anne started rolling pretzels at a local farmers market, and eventually created Auntie Anne’s, taking it around the globe. Out of her pain came a purpose and desire to persevere towards personal and professional success, which she believes can only be realized when you have a great product, great people on your team, and a greater purpose than yourself. Anne is among an elite group of American women who have founded and owned an international franchise company. Her commitment to excellence and humility has been recognized by national media, including Good Morning America, Oprah, Fortune Magazine and Secret Millionaire. She was named one of America’s 500 women entrepreneurs and was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year by Inc. Magazine. She holds honorary doctorates from Eastern College and Elizabethtown College. In 2005, Anne sold Auntie Anne’s and authored Twist of Faith, an intimate look at the inner workings of her life while building an international corporation.
Today, Anne is a highly sought after speaker with a passion for helping business leaders discover their purpose and founder of 7 Women, an organization that teaches women to find their voice and set themselves free from pain, blame, shame that keeps them stuck. Anne lives in Texas with her husband Jonas. They are parents of two daughters, both married, and proud grandparents to four grandchildren.