Jessica Williams founded Food Forward Thinking LLC to support the growth of foodservice in convenience stores, restaurants, and grocery chains. Her consulting company’s specialty is providing menu labeling compliance solutions, developing foodservice platforms, and elevating executional consistency. Williams works with food distributors, equipment manufacturers, and a broad range of foodservice operators to dial in recipe cost models, source ingredients, develop training, and provide nutrition facts for proprietary food and beverage items. Prior to founding her consulting firm, Williams led fresh food product development and quality assurance at Thorntons, Inc. convenience store chain. The foodservice platform established there is leading the industry in evolving consumer expectations and elevating food quality. Williams learned foundational product development knowledge at Yum! Brands, Inc., where she conducted consumer research and developed food and equipment items for the Kentucky Fried Chicken brand for ten years. She has extensive experience with large-scale commercialization, experimental test design, and consumer research. She has supported the growth of the KFC brand globally with assignments in the United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and Latin America. Williams holds a Bachelor of Science in Food Science & Technology from the University of Kentucky and currently lives on an organic dairy farm in Kentucky.

Frank White has close to 30 years of direct operating experience in the convenience store industry. He has experience in operations including training and recruiting, marketing and foodservice. He began his retail career with QuikTrip, a premier industry leading chain with over 500 convenience stores and went on to help launch the Davenport’s chain of convenience stores in Charlotte NC, which was subsequently sold to Exxon Mobil. Frank spent 8 years with Exxon Mobil, first as a Training Director for the East Coast, Tennessee and then as their Field Category Manager for the TN division. Frank joined for Family Express a 75+ convenience store chain operating in Indiana as a Category Marketing Manager. Frank was the Director of Marketing at EZ Energy USA and was instrumental in building the Easy Trip brand. During his career, he has had experience in all aspects of the convenience store business, including but not limited to director level roles in operations, personnel development and marketing. Frank has a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from New York Institute of Technology and an MBA from University of Phoenix. He has been part of the advisory council for Convenience Retailing University, and Home Market Foods. Frank always strives to develop people, build brands and deliver increased sales and margins for organizations. Frank is currently the owner of White Knight Marketing LLC, a consulting company focused on helping convenience retailers with projects such as, assortment analysis, category management, merchandising, contract analysis and negotiations. He also works with consumer-packaged goods companies on market analysis and product introduction. Frank also works with companies on acquisition due diligence for the convenience channel.

Brad Barnes is director of consulting and industry programs at The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, NY. Chef Barnes is responsible for the oversight of ProChef professional training, operational engineering and intellectual property development. As a matter of practice, chef Barnes consults globally with a variety of clients ranging from educational institutions to hotels, real estate developers, governmental organizations, food manufacturers, and a variety of food business organizations seeking to drive operational change and excellence. A 1987 CIA graduate, Chef Barnes has also served as the college’s senior director of culinary education and senior director of continuing education. Prior to joining the CIA in 2009, he was president of GigaChef, LLC and chef/owner of B&B Solutions, providing a variety of operational consulting services over a span of 15 years; he also led several commercial restaurant teams as executive chef. Today he remains an active businessperson as a partner in multiple food businesses across the US. Brad Barnes is co-author of, So You Want to Be a Chef?, So You Are a Chef, and The American Culinary Federation’s Guide to Culinary Certification. He is the former national Certified Master Chef Committee chair for the American Culinary Federation (ACF) and a former past chair of the ACF National Certification Commission. He is an ACF-certified culinary competition judge and certified by the World Association of Chefs Societies as an international judge. Chef Barnes is one of 72 Certified Master Chefs (CMC) in the country and was an inductee of the American Academy of Chefs (AAC), the American Culinary Federation’s honor society. He has received many honors during his career including the President’s Award (2005), President’s Medallion (2004), and Hermann G. Rusch Humanitarian Award (2002) from the ACF for his work during 911. He was twice named Chef of the Year by the Chefs Association of Westchester and Lower Connecticut (1990 and 1993). Chef Barnes earned two gold medals at the Culinary Olympics in Germany and the Saint Michel Gold Medal for Pastry Display at the Société Culinaire Philanthropiqué New York Salon of Culinary Arts. He served as coach and design director of the ACF’s Team USA culinary Olympic teams in 2000, 2004, and 2008.

Mike Fogarty is the Founder and CEO of Choice Market located in downtown Denver. Choice, which opened in October 2017, is an omnichannel convenience store that combines the operating hours, transaction times, and store size of the traditional c-store with the product selection of a natural grocery and fast casual restaurant. Choice currently operates five locations in the Denver market and has invested in a leading-edge technology experience, including its frictionless checkout platform – Choice NOW. Prior to Choice, Mike served as Senior Category Manager at Danone, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of natural and organic products, where he oversaw a $200M portfolio of plastic packaging contracts. He and his team were responsible for the sourcing, contracting, cost reduction and supplier performance activities for all plastic packaging in North America. Prior to Danone, Mike worked within the supply chain function at several other Fortune 500 companies including Johns Manville, Newmont Mining and Charter Communications. Mike received his undergraduate degree from Penn State University in Supply Chain and Information Systems and went on to obtain his MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Joined Rutter’s in September of 2007. He has 38 years of experience in the convenience retail industry, with a proven track record of achieving results in marketing, merchandising, sales, business development and operations. Robert has experienced many facets of the c-store industry and had prior experience in both large corporate cultures along with mid to small private companies. Prior to Rutter’s he was a principal consultant with Impact 21 Group, 7 years in Northern New England with Irving Oil Corporation, managing marketing for the US and Canadian markets. Robert began his career at Southland Corporation (7-Eleven), where he spent 17 years with the company. He held numerous roles that included store manager and senior field consultant and progressed through the ranks in various operations, merchandising, and marketing roles.

Paul Servais is the Vice President of Food Service for Kwik Trip, Inc., La Crosse, Wisconsin. Paul has been with Kwik Trip for 25 years. He started as a Store Leader in 1999 and worked his way up to District Leader and then to Vice President. Paul has been in his current role for 16 years and leads the 35-member food service team that oversees food service operations in all 850+ company-owned Kwik Trip/Kwik Star Stores. Paul resides in Arcadia, Wisconsin with his wife Arlene (33 years) and youngest of 3 children, Molly. Paul enjoys hunting, working outside, family, reading, eating, and the Green Bay Packers!

Kay Segal founded Business Accelerator Team in 2015 with an eye on providing business solutions focused on accelerating revenue in the c-store, foodservice and B2B media industries. Kay’s vast industry experience stems from a variety of roles within convenience industry media, Circle K, 7-Eleven, Clark County Health District and Sky Chefs, where her combined experiences positioned her to offer diverse industry insight and a unique niche of services that help both vendor and retail clients bolster profitability.

Courtney Williams, founder and CEO of CollaborATE Co, hails from both Penn State and Drexel University with a focus on hospitality innovation & creativity. Research & Development is Courtney’s forte with an emphasis on strategy and preparing companies for 5 and 10 years down the road ensuring the longevity of programs. Working for companies such as Potbelly Sandwich works and Sheetz as well as fine dining establishments like Reunion Resort and Bel-Wood Country club, have given her the groundwork and background as to how both the FOH and BOH work based on clientele wants and needs. She has an extensive background in implementing new foodservice programs having created them from scratch including product, equipment, design, marketing, training and internal communication multiple times. She feels that helping companies to create their own Stage Gate process and innovation pipeline is an integral part of success and one of the key differentiators of her services.