Breakout Session / Thursday / June 2, 2022 / 3:00 PM

Placing Your Bets on Current and Future Technology

“Money doesn’t grow on trees,” goes the old saying. With finite resources and so many interesting and promising technologies, how do you know which ones are going to pay off? This session will discuss investment allocation across current and future platforms, giving you a framework and an edge in your strategies and decision making.


PANELISTS

Chris Artinian | President & CEO | Condado Tacos
Chris Artinian serves as President & CEO at Condado Tacos and Tequila, an emerging brand that specializes in tacos, margs and tequilas, with growth plans to double its size by the end of 2023. Chris has over 30 years of restaurant and retail experience, with both private and public companies, and has extensive experience in restaurant and consumer services. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Another Broken Egg, Ted’s Cafe Escondido, and Condado Tacos. Chris joined Condado Tacos to partner with the team in charting the next phase of meteoric growth. He continues to serve as an Operating Director at The Beekman Group.
Steve Lieber | VP Franchise Business Development | BurgerFi
Steve Lieber is an expert in designing restaurant concepts, the art of pizza making and is a certified pizzaiolo from Italy. As Vice President of Franchise Development, Steve leads the team who sold over 150 franchises to over 50 franchise groups. His team has sold franchises in 20+ states and international deals in Kuwait and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Our teams built systemwide restaurant sales of $100+ million USD in under 5 years. Steve was on opening restaurant teams for 10+ states in the United States. He taught franchisees recruiting techniques, training and operating systems, professionalism, food ordering and preparation, inventory controls, labor controls, local store marketing to increase sales and profitability of all locations.
Christina Pletnewski | VP of Customer Experience | Safelite Group
Christina Pletnewski is a powerhouse marketer, leading new and innovative solutions around the end-to-end customer experience at Safelite. Christina is currently serving as Vice President, Customer Experience at Safelite to build and lead a team to create meaningful experiences for customers, associates and clients that drive business value. Christina joined Safelite Group in January of 2016 as the Vice President of Marketing leading TV creative and media, market research, B2B marketing, corporate communications, internal creative and ancillary products and services. As a career marketer and customer advocate, Christina has worked for leading companies including Abbott, Nestle and SC Johnson.
MODERATOR

Sam Gerace | CEO | Lineup.ai
Sam Gerace leads the Lineup.ai team as they launch innovative data science products that drastically increase revenue forecasting accuracy and optimize labor scheduling for the restaurant industry. Sam is a five-time tech entrepreneur – the founding Chief Executive Officer of Convey, a licensor of patents and mobile+cloud CRM libraries for sales and account management teams; Veritix (Flash Seats), a sports and live-entertainment SaaS platform company processing over $1 billion in ticketing transactions annually; Be Free, a digital marketing platform company processing over $2 billion in commerce transactions annually; PCXIS, Inc. a public utility marketing software company; and PCX Consulting, Inc., a systems development firm serving heavy industry. Sam and his wife are committed to organizations helping children facing significant challenges. Sam has chaired the board of Minds Matter of Cleveland for eight years, is the President of the board of the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra.
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