Sales and marketing executive Jo Kirchner was disappointed by the child care options she saw when she moved to Atlanta decades ago.
But when she parked in front of Primrose Country Day School just outside Marietta, she knew something was different.
The founders of Primrose had invited her to help with sales and marketing, and as she pulled up to the site off Ga. 120, she could tell — even before stepping inside — that the school had a unique environment.
By 1990, Kirchner had helped Primrose Schools grow into a franchise, and she eventually became CEO. Today, the Atlanta-based company has more than 530 franchised locations across the U.S. and is widely recognized as a leader in early childhood education.
Meanwhile, the country has faced a growing child care affordability crisis.
In one of its efforts to address the issue, Primrose has partnered with AdventHealth and other organizations to open West Lakes Early Learning Center in Orlando, where Primrose curriculum is given to students pro bono. Primrose hopes to replicate the model across the country.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution sat down with Kirchner to discuss her rise to CEO and her thoughts on the future of child care.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Q: What lessons do you think being a mother taught you both in your professional career and your life?
If a child has academic strengths and if they have good physical habits, but who they are isn’t a confident, creative, curious, compassionate person — they don’t tend to thrive as well. And success is not just financial success or business success; success is holistic in life.
That’s what I wanted for my children. That’s what I saw at Primrose that stood out for me. Not only were they early childhood educators, but they recognized that character development was so essential to a child being happy and thriving.
Q: My mom is a doctor, and my dad is a software engineer, and both of them were working parents as well, but they could afford to send me to preschool at Primrose. Still, for many families in the United States, there’s a big child care affordability crisis. How have you seen this problem manifest during your time as a leader at Primrose? And do you think there are feasible solutions?
It was very clear, as I did my research before we started franchising, that Primrose was a high-quality early learning environment. Families (that) could afford it would put their children in our schools, but in every community, there were families who couldn’t.
And so we created a foundation. The families and the teachers within the schools and the franchise owners each year would host an event to raise money. …
I (also) cofounded the Early Care & Education Consortium, an association of all regional and national child care companies, for two reasons: one, to bring them together to understand that at all price points, quality was critical and … (two), to think about how can we influence the federal government, and how can we influence the state, to invest in high-quality early education, to provide subsidies to families who can’t afford it.
Q: What are your thoughts on what accessible child care will look like going into the future?
I think it’s going to be a mixed delivery model where you will have people who — maybe they’re an educator within their home that has a small group of children, but be certified for safety and health first, and that they’re delivering a quality environment for children with learning resources.
I think that there will be child care centers, both free-standing in the communities, as well as on-site at companies. The “big, beautiful bill” that’s just passed is giving tax incentives to businesses to ensure that they consider putting child care on-site for families. Certainly, that’s another advantage.
Churches will offer programs, but they need to be certified in high quality and health and safety.
Q: What is the role of child care in today’s world, and how are you changing things in terms of what children are taught — especially with all of this new technology coming out?
There’s a lot of research that’s been done on the skills that humans have that computers cannot and AI cannot replace. Those are creativity, curiosity, confidence and compassion — the 4C’s that we believe are so critical for children to thrive. …
Human skills and those social, emotional skills, those abilities to interact, and to use those resources effectively, are the skills of the future. And we know that those skills are embedded in a child through early brain development during early education — so we see early education as such an essential driver.
Q: What are your goals moving forward? Do you want to remain in this role long into the future, or are there other projects that you’re interested in?
I couldn’t imagine doing anything else, and really, today, we have a national platform as a brand. I think I have an ability both to influence growth for our business and … the infrastructure of child care in America and maybe someday globally.
But from a business perspective, there is such an unmet demand. …
We’re looking at new and different ways to open schools. We have franchise owners across the country. … We also have institutional investors who are beginning to look at coming into Primrose and bringing in partners who help them grow where we’ve had challenges growing.
Q: One concern I saw that parents had about institutional investors was that things would be standardized. How are you approaching developing curriculum or meeting different needs in different parts of the country?
We meet the child where they are. … But the core early learning: the cognitive learning, the physical development and the social emotional learning — those are core. And so ensuring that those are consistently delivered, that’s the standardization. …
We’re constantly assessing, “How are those children doing?” And if there’s any areas that we need to develop additional curriculum or training or resources, we do that here and push it out to the schools.
All the other additional services that are recognized individually for children, those come from a local community, and there are national organizations that we can plug into to get those additional services. That way, you ensure consistency and quality.
Q: What advice do you have for other women looking to go into business or climb the ladder and become leaders in this space?
Find your passion, follow your passion, and never waver from what you really love. … Your work should be something that you love, and it doesn’t feel like work.
AJC Her+Story is a new series in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution highlighting women founders, creators, executives and professionals. It is about building a community. Know someone the AJC should feature in AJC Her+Story? Email us at herstory@ajc.com with your suggestions. Check out all of our AJC Her+Story coverage at ajc.com/herstory.
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