Kika Wise

Kika Wise is a former professional dancer who turned her last $500 into Kika Stretch Studios, a national wellness franchise. A single mother at the time, she opened her first studio in a basement in Montclair, New Jersey. Her dance training shaped the Kika Method®, her signature approach to breath-led assisted stretching. To grow beyond that first studio, she had to teach other coaches how to deliver the same experience her clients came to her for. Her work has been featured in The New York Times.

Kika went on to found and build Black Box Franchising, a franchise development company that helps business owners bring their concepts to new markets. She drew on lessons she had learned in her own studios, from training a team to recognizing which details make a customer come back. Through Franchise with Kika, she now works directly with founders to decide whether their businesses are ready to franchise and to put the training, standards, and support in place for their first franchise owners.

An entrepreneur who has built three national brands, Kika is also a speaker, educator, and author of the memoir The Stretch. In the book, she shares the personal side of her journey, including how motherhood, faith, and loss shaped her decisions along the way. Whether she’s working with an established founder or teaching a student with a first business idea, Kika brings the perspective of someone who remembers exactly what it took to open the first door.