Leadership at Six Flags Scores

In 2009, Six Flags Entertainment Corp. declared bankruptcy and entered a tenuous period of restructuring and rebuilding.

Jim Reid-Anderson, President, CEO, and Chairman assumed the helm in 2010, with the goal of helping the company recover from bankruptcy and refocus the regional theme park chain in a new direction.

At his keynote address Wednesday at the IAAPA GM and Owners’ Breakfast, he laid out the strategies he implemented in the last two years at Six Flags and their positive impact on the company. Reid-Anderson shared his acronym for business success: SCORE. S – Strategy  C – Communication  O – Organization  R – Reward & Recognition  E – Execution.

He spoke about the importance of figuring out what it is that you do well and doing it. “The single most important thing you can do is lay out a simple strategy that everyone can understand”, Reid-Anderson said. To implement this strategy, Six Flags eliminated ancillary businesses and focused on succeeding as a group of excellent regional theme parks.

His strategy and leadership is reaping big rewards for the company and the industry as a whole. Six Flags’ guest satisfaction scores are high, park revenues are up with increased profits, and there have been impressive gains in the company’s stock price over the last two years. There is no doubt that Reid-Anderson’s leadership at Six Flags scores.

“I feel like this is the industry’s time”, he said. “We can continue to raise our overall profile. We need to talk positively not only about our company, but about our competitors, and share our pride. The implications are immense, because that leads to a position where we’re all better off.”