Betsy McLaughlin (Born 1962 in Orange County, California) is the current CEO of Hot Topic, Inc. and founder of Torrid. She originally graduated from University of California, Irvine. During Betsy's time with Hot Topic, the corporation made "Fortune's 100 Best Places to Work in America" list. It was Betsy who came up with the concept for the second Hot Topic division called "Torrid", a plus size woman's chain for younger females. Betsy has received a number of awards for her unique "think outside the box" approach to management. However, over the past few years, her management skills and business strategies have been ineffective as the "dark" look of Hot Topic has lost tremendous popularity. Due to her lack of leadership as CEO, the stock has dropped to an all-time low as of December 29th, 2007.
