In my 30 years of conceptualizing, building, and leading businesses, I’ve become a trusted sounding board and Jack of all trades. Whether it’s developing leaders or digging through a P&L, I bring a refreshing and holistic approach to creating, mending, and growing businesses that want to make an impact.
In college, I pursued my love for designing memorable places by studying landscape architecture. I realized that I had a natural gift for working with people, so I decided to change careers, eventually becoming General Manager at Danny Meyer’s iconic first restaurant, Union Square Cafe. Union Square Hospitality Group’s commitment to company culture created a spark within me, and I became eternally committed to empowering people and optimizing businesses from that point on.
Throughout my career at USHG, I had a seat at the table in creating and actualizing functioning businesses. From forming teams to creating SOPs to navigating service, I’ve become a true expert at finessing the qualitative and quantitative aspects of all things business. With Blue Smoke & Jazz Standard, I co-founded, directed and grew a business that would ultimately have more than 175 employees and five units. At Porchlight, I conceived USHG’s first standalone bar, and I led the entire development process, from site selection, financing, design and construction, to developing the menus and hiring the team. With these and many other ventures, I maintained a spirit of entrepreneurship, where I pursued my burning questions of, “What if?”, “Why not?” and “How might we…?” to inspire a spirit of innovation and optimism within our team.
I’m a lifelong learner, and I frequently share my perspective as a speaker, panelist, and guest lecturer. I’ve shared knowledge and insight with students at the Institute of Culinary Education for over a decade, taught the ins and outs of operations as an adjunct instructor at New York University, and have frequently lectured for Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration, Columbia University, and NYU.
While I’m a business advisor by title, my work is much more than advice. I help organizations get unstuck by providing actionable, focused direction that’s synthesized from 30 years of conceptualizing, growing, and managing businesses for Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group.
I help you get where you want your business to go—faster and better. Whether you want the framework to launch a business from a simple idea or you want to further operationalize your business of 100+ employees, I provide you with the experience, perspective, and practical steps to fix what’s broken and do more of what’s working.
I commonly help businesses with the following:
Painting an objective picture of what’s possible
Providing your leaders with skills to inspire your team
Repairing a fragmented organizational culture
Recalibrating your org chart to improve teamwork
Identifying where your business is leaking money
Designing systems to increase your bottom-line profits
Benchmarking critical KPIs to understand performance
Transforming big ideas into tactical plans
Assessing opportunities and gaps in culture and operations
Refreshing your customer experience for loyalty
Business challenges are my jam, and I’m excited to shoulder yours.
- Nationwide