Peter Fader is the Frances and Pei-Yuan Chia Professor of Marketing at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His expertise centers around the analysis of behavioral data to understand and forecast customer shopping/purchasing activities. He works with firms from a wide range of industries, such as telecommunications, financial services, gaming/entertainment, retailing, and pharmaceuticals. Managerial applications focus on topics such as customer relationship management, lifetime value of the customer, and sales forecasting for new products. Much of his research highlights the consistent (but often surprising) behavioral patterns that exist across these industries and other seemingly different domains. In addition to his various roles and responsibilities at Wharton, Professor Fader co-founded a predictive analytics firm (Zodiac) in 2015, which was sold to Nike in 2018. He then co-founded (and continues to run) Theta Equity Partners to commercialize his more recent work on “customer-based corporate valuation.” Fader is the author of “Customer Centricity: Focus on the Right Customers for Strategic Advantage” (2020) and co-authored “The Customer Centricity Playbook” with Sarah Toms (2018). He has won many awards for his research and teaching accomplishments. Among these achievements, he was named by Advertising Age as one of its inaugural “25 Marketing Technology Trailblazers” in 2017, and was the only academic on the list.

Matt Wilber is CFO of the bartaco and has over thirty years of restaurant experience. His specialty has been transforming slow growth founder-owned restaurants into high growth private equity-owned restaurant chains. Each brand he has worked with has grown by more than four times their size during his tenure with them. Matt has been the CFO of Souper Salad, Flat Out Crazy, and Barteca Restaurant Group. He has also been the CFO of Goode Partners, and was the manager in charge of the San Antonio restaurant practice for Deloitte. Matt has experienced the restaurant industry from the perspective of an auditor, working for a private equity firm, consultant, owner/investor, restaurant manager, and as a CFO. He has been involved in numerous capital raises, debt restructures, mergers, and acquisitions.

Mr. Potvin has been the Chief Financial Officer for California Fish Grill since 2014. Mr. Potvin has over 19 years of experience in the restaurant industry. He served as Chief Financial Officer of Elephant Bar Restaurant from 2006–2014 and Patina Group/Restaurant Associates from 2001-2006. From 1998-2001, he served as Director of Finance for Acapulco Restaurants and Controller for the combined Acapulco/El Torito Restaurants. Before entering the restaurant business, Mr. Potvin was part of Mattel, Inc doing SEC Report and Worldwide Consolidation. Additionally, he started his career as an auditor for Deloitte & Touche LLP. He holds a MBA in finance from Loyola Marymount University and an undergraduate degree in Business Economics from UC Santa Barbara.

Matt Eisenacher is currently the Senior Vice President, Brand Strategy and Innovation at First Watch Restaurants.  Prior to joining First Watch in 2019, Matt was the Chief Concept Officer for Piada Italian Street Food based in Columbus, Ohio where he was responsible for the branding, marketing, IT and business development efforts as the concept expanded nationwide from 16 units in 2013 to 41 in 2019.  

Prior to joining Piada, Matt spent 12+ years in the Consumer-Packaged Goods industry across a variety of food & nutrition brands working for Nestle USA, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Abbott Nutrition.  Matt received a Bachelor’s degree in Finance and Management from Ohio University and his MBA, specializing in Marketing, from The Ohio State University.

Arun is the CTO at BigSpring, a startup that is focused on lifelong learning with a focus on ROI. Before BigSpring, Arun led large teams and product areas at Uber where he was part of the founding team on Uber Eats. Arun helped Eats grow from 0 to $30b in GMV across 30 countries. Prior to that he was a Tech Lead at Google on the Developer Platform team. Arun has also worked at mobile startups in both enterprise and consumer areas. Arun has a BS in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins and lives in the suburbs outside New York City.

Kimbal Musk is chef, restaurateur, philanthropist, and real food entrepreneur. His personal mission is to pursue an America where everyone has access to real food. Mr. Musk has been named a Global Social Entrepreneur by the World Economic Forum. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of The Kitchen Restaurant Group and is the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Big Green and Square Roots.

The Kitchen Restaurant Group -- with its three concepts Next Door, Hedge Row, and The Kitchen -- serves real food at every price point and has created hundreds of mission driven jobs. The restaurants source sustainably grown food from American farmers, stimulating the local farm economy to the tune of millions of dollars a year. Mr. Musk's non-profit organization, Big Green, builds permanent, outdoor Learning Garden classrooms in hundreds of underserved schools across America reaching over 350,000 students everyday. His tech-enabled food company, Square Roots, builds urban farms in climate-controlled shipping containers with the mission to bring real food to people in cities around the world by empowering next-gen farmers.

Mr. Musk is on the board for Tesla and SpaceX. Follow him on Twitter @Kimbal and Instagram @KimbalMusk.

Gretchen Thomas is the Vice President of Creative for Barcelona Restaurants. Thomas was previously the Wine & Spirits Director of Barteca Restaurant Group, the parent company of Barcelona Wine Bar and Bartaco, which was acquired by DFRG in 2018. Then she went on to be VP of Beverage at DFRG overseeing all beverage programs until the company sold in 2019. At Barteca, Thomas built the beverage programs for Barcelona Wine Bar and bartaco over her 14-year tenure. For Barcelona, she continues to oversee one of the largest Spanish wine programs in the United States. Thomas also manages all spirits and beer selections, and all cocktail creations. In her new creative role, she now oversees all food innovations, marketing strategies, and purchasing initiatives. Her drive and ingenuity lead to the creation of the blend for Libélula, the house tequila for the much-awarded margarita at bartaco. Thomas initially envisioned becoming a chef and is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, where she was Valedictorian of her class, recipient of the Kopf Achievement Award, and a resident Wine Tutor. She has obtained various levels of certifications from WSET, CMS, CSW, WSG and NOSA. She is a certified Sherry Specialist, certified Spanish Wine Educator from the Wine Academy of Spain, where she scored in the top 15 in the world, as well as earned highest honors as a Spanish Wine Scholar. Thomas currently lives in Easton, CT with her husband, daughter, and four pets.

Nicole Bushnell is born and bred in the restaurant industry with over 20 year’s experience building brand loyalty and growing multi-unit restaurant brands. Bushnell has recently joined the Punch Bowl Social team as Chief Marketing Officer where she leads all brand and marketing activities across the country. Prior to Punch Bowl Social, Bushnell served as Chief Marketing Officer for Garden Fresh Restaurants where she lead all brand strategy, e-commerce, and loyalty platforms. Preceding her work at Garden Fresh Restaurants she was VP of Marketing at Lung Grill restaurants where during her tenure the chain grew from 18 to 51 locations. With Bushnell’s deep expertise in the restaurant industry she has a proficiency in evolving both legacy and emerging brands through the integration of innovative marketing and operations solutions.