Stephen Lynn

Stephen Lynn General Information

Biography

Mr. Stephen Lynn serves as Partner at Cherokee Advisors. Mr. Lynn also Co-Founded and served as Managing Partner at Reconstruction Partners. He led a group of investors in acquiring Back Yard Burgers at the end of 2007. BYBI operates and franchises approximately 180 restaurants throughout the south and Midwest. Since completing the acquisition the corporate headquarters has been relocated to Nashville. He spent 12 years as Chairman and CEO. He built the top-notch management team, which transformed a struggling company into the nation's largest chain of drive-in restaurants and the 'number two' hamburger chair in the Southwest, with over $3 billion in system-wide sales. Lynn acquired the company in a leveraged buyout in 1986 and Sonic experienced unprecedented same store sales growth with an average increase of eight percent per year over his tenure. A key factor in the establishment of Sonic's success was an "ownership" culture where unit managers own part of their restaurants. The leadership team that Lynn put together built Sonic from a Market Cap of $5 Million to over 2.3 Billion.