Mark Anderson

Vice President of F&B for Wyndham Hotel Group

Mark is an accomplished hospitality professional, with over 30 years of experience in various leadership roles. The journey began as an Executive Chef for the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond Virginia and progressed as Director of Catering, and Director of Food and Beverage for premier properties in Washington, DC and Los Angeles. Mark transitioned  as Corporate Director of Food and Beverage, with a portfolio of 17 full service properties and 24 restaurants, in the New England area. As a General Manager, Mark lead teams for Sheraton, Westin, Four Points, and Hilton Hotels.

In his current role as Vice President of Food and Beverage for Wyndham Hotel Group, Mark is responsible for operations and development.

 

Dave Arthurs

Vice President Engineering, Restaurant Products, OpenTable

Dave Arthurs founded restaurant reservations and CRM company GuestBridge in 2001. GuestBridge was an early revenue management pioneer utilizing table inventory optimization to increase revenue. In 2009 GuestBridge was acquired by OpenTable where he continues to innovate and expand the boundaries of restaurant management. Dave has an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BS in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

 

Brandon Barton

Head of Sales & Operations, Resy

After graduating, Brandon dedicated his career to restaurant operations, working, most notably, with Danny Meyer’s USHG as a Beverage Director. Learning from the best leader in hospitality, his wine and beverage program earned many awards, including the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence. Brandon’s love for technology and desire to help many restaurants throughout the country led him to Avero in 2008, where he helped grow Avero’s client list from 1,000 to 5,000 restaurants. As Regional Sales Director, Brandon worked with some of the best hospitality brands in the business, such as the Four Seasons, Caesar’s Entertainment, Lettuce Entertain You, and Shake Shack. In 2014, the entrepreneurial bug hit. Wanting to build something from the ground up, Brandon met Ben Leventhal, co-founder of Eater, and Gary Vaynerchuk, Entrepreneur, who we’re starting Resy, a new reservations platform. As Resy’s Head of Sales and Operations, Brandon has grown the business in six markets with over 250 restaurants, including Estela, Charlie Bird, Michael Mina’s Test Kitchen, Fedora, and Michelle Bernstein’s Cena.

Jonathan Beard

Senior Manager of Pricing & Revenue Management, Walt DisneyWorld Resort

Jonathan Beard is the Senior Manager for Pricing and Revenue Management, located at the Walt DisneyWorld® Resort in Orlando, Florida. He is responsible for pricing and revenue management solutions for Merchandise, within Parks and Resorts. He has also had the responsibility for leading pricing and revenue management for Food & Beverage. Prior to working for Walt Disney World, Jonathan spent 11 years in the department store business with Mercantile Stores, holding positions in Operations, Strategy, Planning and Inventory Optimization.

 

Vivek Bhogaraju

Director, Global Strategic Alliances

Vivek Bhogaraju leads Global Strategic Alliances at IDeaS – a SAS Company. In his role Vivek is responsible for strategic alliances in order to meet IDeaS’ strategic and growth objectives. He is responsible for driving Pricing and Revenue Management excellence through the IDeaS Partner Ecosystem with responsibility for key initiatives for IDeaS’ Academic, Reseller, Ambassador, and Integration Partners.

Vivek began his career in hotel operations with Oberoi Hotels & Resorts. His stint encompassed management roles of increasing levels of responsibility and complexity in Rooms Division and Food and Beverage in Mauritius, New Delhi and Kolkata in India.

Vivek completed the Masters in Management in Hospitality degree from the School of Hotel Administration, Cornell University with a focus on Revenue Management. In addition, he has completed programs in Strategic Alliances and Strategic Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Eli Chait

Director of Product, OpenTable

Eli Chait is a Director of Product at OpenTable responsible for the company’s analytics efforts. He founded Copilot, a business intelligence platform acquired by OpenTable in 2014 and previously led campus-based investing at venture capital firm Alsop Louie Partners. His first job was working in the family restaurant business and is still closely involved in his father’s Los Angeles-based restaurant group.

 

 

 

Angus Davis 

Founder, Upserve

I began my entrepreneurial career taking my grandmother’s magazines, clipping articles, stapling them together into my own creation and selling them door-to-door. My career as an eight-year-old media aggregator was short lived, but in high school I joined the early team at one of America’s first ISPs (Our class B was 155.212), where I built Web sites.

After creating the first online college application, I skipped college to becomeNetscape’s youngest employee in 1996, where I worked with giants (marca,jimb) who were generous in teaching valuable lessons. I was product manager for our browser, worked on the anti-trust suit, and helped launch mozilla.org.

In 1999, I co-founded Tellme with Mike McCue. What followed were ten years of startup lessons learned, with very talented people. We raised almost a quarter billion in capital, built a profitable business with over $100 million in sales and more than 300 employees, and made speech recognition part of everyday life with customers like American Airlines, FedEx and American Express. We pioneered voice mobile search, 5 years before “Siri.” In 2007,Microsoft acquired Tellme for nearly $1 billion.

After two years leading speech recognition strategy, I left Microsoft in 2009, returning to New England to bring home a Silicon Valley spark. I foundedSwipely in Providence with a world-class team and the support of First Round Capital, Index, Greylock, Shasta and others. Swipely helps local merchants accept payments, understand customers and grow sales.

Forbes calls Swipely “One of America’s Most Promising Companies.” We aim not only to bring value to our customers, employees and shareholders, but to lift Rhode Island, which suffers America’s highest unemployment rate. Swipely is the fastest growing tech company in Rhode Island, one of the “Best Places to Work,” and the first RI firm ever named to the Forbes 100 list. In November 2014, Swipely announced that merchants manage over $4 billion in annual sales on our platform, up +100% in 6 months and +400% in 1 year.

Alfonso Delgado

Managing Director, DSPI

Alfonso brings to the table 15 years of global experience in the fields of revenue management, strategic pricing, business analytics, management consulting, data-driven insights, hospitality operations, business development and leadership.

Since 2012, Alfonso has served in advisory and executive consultant roles for a wide variety of clients including both global and boutique consulting firms, private equity groups, multinational firms with global footprint as well as fast-growing private companies.  Recent long term engagements include the development of pricing strategies and highly customized revenue management frameworks, algorithms and applications for a major European cruise line, a high speed train operator and a major tour operating company.  Alfonso’s current client portfolio spans North America, Europe and Japan.

From 2005 to 2012, as a partner and President of the international division at Revenue Management Solutions (RMS), Alfonso led the expansion of the firm’s operations in Europe and Asia Pacific, growing the international practice to over 30 associates deployed across offices in Paris, Singapore and Tokyo. One of Alfonso’s key responsibilities was to lead the strategic pricing consulting services for a DJIA, 90 billion dollar company across 36 countries that represent almost 15,000 business units and over 37 billion dollars in annual sales.

Alfonso’s experience on the corporate arena includes 5 years at RCCL, one of the world’s leading cruise companies. Three years in the Revenue Management Development team were dedicated to the ongoing evolution of business intelligence frameworks, algorithms and tools for yield optimization and decision-making automation to manage hundreds of sailings. Alfonso also spent 2 years leading the Brand Quality & Standards team for the Celebrity Cruises fleet, contributing to the brand’s consistent placement in the top of the premium cruise line rankings.

Alfonso has also worked in projects and assignments with other major hospitality firms such as Marriott International, Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts and Boyd Gaming.

Lawrence Edwards

Associate Director, Revenue Management Systems.  Marriott International/Starwood

Lawrence Edwards leads the development and deployment of integrated F&B revenue management and forecasting applications for Starwood. Lawrence is responsible for the project management, daily operations, training, and strategy for business systems that provide topline analysis in F&B revenue for Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, covering function space revenues and more than 1,500 restaurants and bars.

Lawrence has 25 years of international hospitality experience and has worked for global hotel brands and independent operators to consult with their business systems strategy. This includes leading the development, design, implementation, and integration of revenue management system functionality in hotel food & beverage venues, group, banquets & catering business segments, function space optimization, and sales incentive systems. He grew up in London and now lives in Brussels with his family, and is looking forward to the integration of Starwood revenue management tools into Marriott global systems structure and strategy.

Mariana Faustinelli

Senior Manager, Deloitte Advisory

• Mariana Faustinelli is a senior manager in Deloitte Advisory specializing in the areas of risks and resilience focusing in the travel, hospitality, and services sector. She has over 13 years in public accounting, enterprise risk management, business, and information technology consulting. Mariana focuses on leading complex projects for multinational organizations in the consumer products and restaurant industry.
• Mariana has served a broad range of global, national, public, private, and not-for-profit organizations. She has led and performed internal audit, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance (SOx readiness), and information technology related engagements. The internal audit projects, SOx, and information technology reviews have included enterprise risk assessments, internal control over financial reporting (ICFR) reviews, business process review, COSO 2013 reviews (updating the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission’s 1992 recommendations for internal control), controls rationalization, application controls testing, segregation of duty reviews, general IT controls reviews, and external quality assessment reviews, among others. Her principal areas of focus are managing internal audit services under co-sourcing and outsourcing arrangements, and financial statement and internal control (ICFR and IT controls).

Mariana is a graduate of Florida International University and holds a Bachelor of Science in accounting and management information systems. She is a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) and a member of the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), and Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA). She is fluent in Spanish, and conversational in Portuguese.

 Alex Failmezger

Director of F&B Analytics, MGM Resorts

 Versatile management professional with 20+ years experience in the hospitality industry. Unique understanding of casino, restaurant, retail and hotel management practices. Applies sound revenue management and analytic skills to maximize sales and service. Outstanding relationship and brand builder with a solid track record in providing unparalleled customer service and satisfaction.

Alex received her MMH from Cornell.  After graduating from Cornell, she was a manager in Revenue Management at Harrah’s Entertainment.Prior to joining MGM, Alex was a Senior Director at Fishbowl Analytics and a Senior Consultant at CzarMetrics.

Christine Gamble

Vice President of Planning and Integration, Worldwide Hotel Operations for Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts

 

Based in Toronto, at the Four Seasons Corporate office, Chrissy reports to the President of Hotel Operations. In this capacity, Chrissy develops and delivers on key strategic operational priorities and supports the implementation of corporate initiatives and programs in the field.  Chrissy is responsible for alignment of Hotel Operations in the Business Development and Portfolio Management processes globally.

Chrissy, a member of Ye Hosts Honor Society and the recipient of the Drown Prize, graduated from the Cornell Hotel School in 2001. While at Cornell, Chrissy worked full time at the Statler in Banfi’s restaurant. In her freshman year she started as a server in Banfi’s and worked to be the Student Manager of the restaurant in her Senior year. She served on the Board of Directors of HEC as a junior.

From Ithaca, she pursued a career in Food and Beverage Management working with Four Seasons at properties including the Four Seasons Chicago, The Beverly Wilshire, Four Seasons Resort Aviara, the Four Seasons New York and the Four Seasons Philadelphia. Chrissy’s experience also includes work with Restaurant Associates, Intercontinental Hotels and Thompson Hotels. In 2012, Chrissy joined Four Seasons Corporate Office as a Project Manager in Rooms and Food and Beverage Operations then Director. In these roles, she supported the openings of hotels in Orlando, South Korea, Bogota, Colombia, Oahu and New York Downtown.

A New Yorker, Chrissy loves to try new restaurants and bars, travel and visit art museums in her free time.

Scott Gingerich

Regional VP of Restaurants + Bars,   Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants

• As RVP, he 
is
 responsible for overseeing
all
personnel
and
systems to develop, renovate, operate and maintain the growing number of restaurants and bars managed by Kimpton in the western half of the U.S. Currently, Kimpton operates 27 restaurants and bars in this region, with an additional 10 restaurants or bars in the pipeline. Kimpton was acquired by InterContinental Hotels Group (“IHG”) in January 2015, opening the door for a global launch and accelerated growth of the Kimpton brand within the U.S.
• Gingerich joined Kimpton in January 2015 after consulting for the group’s concept development team. Before joining Kimpton,
he held senior leadership positions with some of the industry’s most renowned and profitable restaurant groups, including Hakkasan, Tao Group, and China Grill Management, and he has provided operational and development advisory to several high profile international events including three Olympics, the Masters golf tournament, and the 2015 Milano Expo. Along the way, he has built an unparalleled reputation as a result-driven and detail-oriented food and beverage professional with a proven record of using detailed operational analysis to implement change that ultimately leads to measurable bottom line improvement.
• Originally from Pebble Beach, California, Gingerich holds a bachelor’s degree from University of Virginia and a Master of Management in Hospitality degree from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration. He currently resides in Sonoma County, California, with his wife and three children.

 

Sheryl Kimes

Professor of  Operations Management

Sheryl E. Kimes is a professor of operations management at the School of Hotel Administration. From 2005–2006, she served as interim dean of the School and from 2001-2005, she served as the school’s director of graduate studies. Kimes teaches revenue management, restaurant revenue management and service operations management. She has been named the school’s graduate teacher of the year three times and was awarded a Menschel Distinguished Teaching Fellowship by Cornell University in 2014.   Her research interests revolve around revenue management in the restaurant, hotel and golf industries and she was awarded with a Lifetime Achievement Award for her research contributions from the Production and Operations Management Society. She has published over 50 articles in leading journals such as Interfaces, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Service Research,Decision Sciences, and the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly. She has served as a consultant to many hospitality enterprises around the world, including Chevy’s FreshMex Restaurants, Walt Disney World Resorts, Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, Starwood Asia-Pacific and Troon Golf. Kimes earned her doctorate in Operations Management in 1987 from the University of Texas at Austin.

 

 

Winston Bao Lord

Co-Founder & CMO, Venga

Venga’s software seamlessly integrates with restaurants’ point of sale systems and reservation systems (e.g. OpenTable) to collect transaction data in real time, including every check, server, and menu item, and link it to individual guests and their feedback. This information is used to build profiles and create actionable insights on the restaurant’s operations and guests. The restaurant’s customers receive better, more personalized service and are rewarded for their loyalty. Clients include Jose Andres’ ThinkFood Group, Innovative Dining Group, Tom Colicchio and Mastro’s Steakhouse.

Winston Bao Lord is co-founder & CMO of Venga. Venga helps restaurants better understand and engage with their guests. TechCrunch said it best: “Venga helps restaurants create profiles of their customers by whipping reservation data, point-of-sale, and other basic information into a souffle of delicious CRM.” By integrating OpenTable with the POS, Venga builds detailed guest profiles based on spend, order, and visit habits to enhance the guest experience and power targeted and automated marketing. Venga was a finalist for the 2014 National Restaurant Association’s Operator Innovation Award. Clients include: Alicart Restaurant Group, Standard Hotel, Fleming’s, Rosa Mexicano, Patina, Tavistock, Firmdale Hotels, and Jose Garces.

A native Washington, Winston was named one of the “Top Forty Under Forty” business people in Washington, D.C. by Business Forward Magazine. He has also been profiled in other publications including People Magazine, Washington Post, Politico, Roll Call and Washingtonian Magazine. He serves on the Boards of DC Central Kitchen, The Washington Ballet and Urban Alliance Foundation and is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Cornell University. He graduated from Yale University in 1990.

 

Michael Lukianoff

Chief Analytical Officer, Fishbowl, Inc.

As an innovator and leader in applied analytics, Mike provides quantitative strategic and tactical guidance to many of the restaurant and retail industry’s most reputable companies.  He is a pioneer in harnessing the power of cloud computing to bring game-changing analytical processes to restaurants and retailers.  He and his team are revolutionizing the way data is harnessed and analyzed to understand consumer behavior and forge actionable business strategies around quantitative results.    

Prior to Fishbowl, Mike was the Founder of Czar Metrics – the Big Data analytics company specializing in building predictive models to support critical executive decisions. In July of 2015, Czar Metrics merged with Fishbowl, Inc. As the Chief Analytical Officer for Fishbowl, Mike empowers clients to both understand their guests and activate those guests with pricing strategies, menu engineering and marketing programs that drive revenues & profit. 

Prior to founding Czar Metrics, Mike was President of the North American division of Revenue Management Solutions, LLC (RMS).  His early career includes nearly a decade of practical restaurant industry experience, with positions ranging from General Manager to Food and Beverage Director and Executive Chef. 

Mike holds a Master’s degree from Cornell University.

Pawan Marwaha

Co-Founder and Chief Grabber, Table Grabber

• Pawan Marwaha is Co-Founder & CEO of TableGrabber – a Microsoft Ventures backed start-up providing business intelligence and predictive analysis to restaurants. Under Pawan’s leadership the start-up has evolved into a middle-layer analytics platform providing predictive analysis to over 2,500 restaurants. The start-up has been recognized for it’s innovative data-driven approach and has won prestigious awards at the TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco and PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit.
• Prior to starting TableGrabber, Pawan worked at the corporate offices of Hilton Worldwide & IHG as Global Manager for Feasibility & Investment Analysis. During this time he was in-charge of underwriting new hotel development deals, asset management, and financial analysis of new hotel and restaurant concepts. Pawan also worked with Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels in their Investment Sales and Advisory team, where he worked on hotel real estate deals of over $825 Million.
• Pawan completed the Master of Management in Hospitality from Cornell Hotel School and has MBA from Mumbai University. He has been recognized as 35-under-35 Travel Industry Leaders by PhoCusWright.

Greg Mezey

Project Manager, Postscript Hospitality

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mairead Murray

Food and Beverage Manager, America, Fairmont Hotels and Resorts International

Cynthia Paynter

Director of Revenue Management Talent and Education, Fairmont Hotels and Resorts

• Cynthia Paynter is a hospitality and revenue management innovator with 20+ years of experience in technology, sales, project management, and training. She provides value through effective business solutions, culture, analytics, and business process re-engineering to improve performance and profits. In her current role as director, revenue management talent & education with FRHI Hotels & Resorts, she is responsible for leading global revenue management talent and education programs to advance total hotel profit optimization competencies and culture throughout the organization.
• In her previous role at FRHI as director, revenue management development, Cynthia was responsible for developing new programs that expanded the scope of revenue management into other areas like restaurants, spas, and function space. Prior to joining FRHI in 2012, Cynthia held various positions with IDeaS, a SAS company, and was responsible for the successful design and implementation of revenue management programs for key strategic accounts. Cynthia has also consulted to the hotel technology sector having held product development, implementation, and system assessment roles with Micros Systems, Inc. She began her sales and revenue management career in Vancouver, Canada, and has worked with Starwood Hotels and Resorts and Wyndham International corporate offices developing revenue management, sales, and operations programs. Cynthia holds a degree in neuroscience from University of King’s College.

 Greg Peppel

Director of Product, Avero

After earning a BS from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, Greg Peppel joined Avero as an analyst in 2008. He became Avero’s first Product Manager in 2009. Now, as Director of Product, Greg leads a team of Product Managers and Marketers dedicated to solving the biggest problems of Food and Beverage operators around the world by harnessing the power of their data. Greg defines and manages Avero’s user-driven development pipeline, bringing innovative product ideas to life, including: Avero Mobile, Single Server Mentoring, and Loss Prevention. In his time away from Avero, Greg is an avid homebrewer and runner.

Gregg Rapp

Menu Engineer

For over 30 years, Gregg Rapp has helped revolutionize the dining industry by showing restaurant owners and chefs how designing menus to evoke customers’ emotions and senses dramatically increases their bottom line.

A native of Dayton, Ohio, Gregg has engineered menus for many top hotels including Four Seasons, Hyatt and Peninsula, and restaurants as diverse as IHOP, Olive Garden, Applebees, Hard Rock Café and the restaurants at Disneyland. He has translated his menu engineering to other businesses including; radio and TV rate cards, doctor’s offices and the funeral industry. Gregg has been featured on “The Today Show”, “Good Morning America” and in “Time” magazine as well as The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Times of India and numerous other publications.

Gregg’s Menu Engineering business thrives on his innovative concept that a menu’s dynamic look and feel connects the customer directly to the profitability of restaurants.

Lisa Raushenberger

Director of Revenue Management Systems and Tools, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts

Heather Richer

Vice President, Revenue and Distribution, Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants

• Heather Richer is vice president, revenue management and distribution, with Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants. In this role, she supports yield management, commercial performance and analytics, and contact center and distribution strategy for both the hotel and restaurant divisions. Over the last 15 years, Richer has served on panels and committees for HEDNA, HSMAI, and AH&LA. She has held positions in sales, revenue management, and distribution for both Swissôtel and Kimpton Hotels, and received her graduate degree from the George Washington University business school.

Dave Roberts

Senior Vice President, Revenue Strategy & Solutions, Marriott Hotels

• Dave Roberts is the Senior Vice President of Revenue Strategy & Solutions at Marriott. He is responsible for Sales & Marketing Analytics, as well as Revenue Management strategy and execution, for all hotels worldwide, across all brands for the company. Prior to this role, Dave was Senior Vice President of Consumer Insight & Revenue Strategy, Senior Vice President of Global Revenue Management, Regional Vice President of Market Strategy for Marriott’s Eastern Region, and Vice President of Global Pricing, in addition to several other roles in Revenue Management.
• Prior to Marriott, he worked at American Airlines, where he was a manager in the Finance Department, working on airplane purchases and route economics. He also worked for three years for the Pentagon as a technical consultant on missile defense, as part of the “Star Wars” initiative. He has a B.S. and an M.S. in Operations Research from Cornell, and an MBA with a major in Economics from Northwestern’s Kellogg School.  He holds a U.S. Patent on a software product, and has published several academic papers on such topics as forecasting, options pricing, and customer choice modeling.
• In his spare time, he enjoys martial arts and astronomy. He lives with his wife and three daughters in Potomac, MD.

Stephani Robson

Senior Lecture, Cornell University School of Hotel Administration

Stephani Robson, senior lecturer, worked for several years in restaurants and retail food operations in her native Canada before deciding to pursue a college degree in the field. She graduated from the School of Hotel Administration in 1988, and began her career as a foodservice designer with Cini-Little International and subsequently with Marrack Watts in Toronto, Ontario. As a professional foodservice designer, she has designed kitchen facilities for hotels, restaurants, airports, hospitals, universities and catering halls. She joined the school’s faculty in 1993, earned a Master of Science in human-environment relations in 1999, and in 2010 completed her PhD at Cornell with a focus on consumer behavior in restaurants. Her academic interests center on how the design of environments affect consumer intentions, satisfaction and behavior. She is a specialist in the psychology of restaurants and has presented and published her research in a wide range of industry and academic forums around the world.

Adam Sternberg

Vice President of Sales-North America, Fourth Hospitality

Passionate sales and dynamic operations executive with 10+ years in sales and 25+ years industry experience in restaurants, hotels, and casinos. Proven track record of growing sales by double-digit increases, consistently achieving aggressive sales goals, recruiting the best talent in the industry, and growing a productive sales team to attack new and emerging markets.

I’ve consistently achieved great results through a great personal work ethic, working hard and smart, and leveraging referencable and long-lasting business relationships. I’m results oriented and focus on customer loyalty by providing unmatched customer service to maximize the short and long term value to the company and my customers.

Alex Susskind

Associate Professor, Cornell University School of Hotel Administration

Alex M. Susskind is an associate professor at the School of Hotel Administration and a member of the Graduate Field of Communication at Cornell University. He earned his PhD in communication from Michigan State University with cognates in organizational communication and organizational behavior where he also earned his MBA with a concentration in personnel and human relations. Susskind’s research is based primarily in organizational communication and organizational behavior. He is currently researching: (a) the influence of customer-service provider interaction as it relates to organizational effectiveness and efficiency from the perspective of guests, employees and managers; and (b) the influence of communication relationships upon individuals’ work-related attitudes and perceptions surrounding organizational events and processes such as teamwork and downsizing.

Sybil Yang

Assistant Professor, San Francisco State University

 

Sybil Yang is an Assistant Professor in San Francisco State University’s where she co-directs the Hospitality & Tourism Management Eye-Tracker Lab. The research objective of the lab is to provide theoretical and practical insight into how consumers perceive, interact with and access hospitality environments. The lab’s current research agenda is focused on evaluating the efficacy of restaurant menu, menu board, and wine label design tactics.

Sybil’s menu design research has been presented at the National Restaurant Association’s annual restaurant shows (2013 and 2010), and have been reported on and featured in Science (online), The Wall Street Journal, Nation’s Restaurant News, Restaurants & Institutions, and Women’s Health Magazine. Her design and pricing recommendations have been directly implemented on hundreds of menus across the United States. Apart from her menu design research, Sybil’s current work also explores how decoys can be used to change consumer behavior.

Prior to her current position at SFSU, Sybil taught menu development at the Culinary Institute of America, was a baker at artisan bread maker Arizmendi (Zagat 25) and chef at Wente Vineyards (Zagat 25). Before finding her professional passion for the Food & Beverage Industry, Sybil was a boring investment banker with Salomon Smith Barney, and an analyst for the venture capital firm Skipstone Ventures. Sybil received her PhD and MBA from Cornell University and Bachelor’s from the University of California at Berkeley.