For the restaurant industry, the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic was an existential threat that provided an opportunity for evolution. Kris McDonald, vice president of development for Checkers & Rally's Drive-In, works with restaurant franchisees and was in the eye of what she calls "the perfect storm" that caused chains to close kitchens, stop indoor dining and rely on drive-throughs and delivery. The result was new and potentially better ways of running restaurants.

"It's given us a good opportunity to look at our basics and see how we improve," McDonald says in the latest episode of a video interview series Women in Net Lease with B+E's Camille Renshaw and Katherine Wadleigh-White. 

As with many who work in net-lease, McDonald, who is based in Tampa, stumbled into the industry by accident, while working on health care in a large large firm, but ended up falling in love with it, she says. She enjoys negotiating and the strategic aspect of deals. Most of all, though, she says she loves working with franchisees and seeing them successful.