Mr. Sirois has more than 40 years of management and leadership experience in the food service industry. His responsibilities during his career have spanned from single restaurant operations to a 100-plus franchise system with more than 800 restaurants, and he has generated positive results in every facet of these businesses including P&L and overhead, real estate and all aspects of human resources in addition to operations. 

Jason Whitmer is a founding partner at Cleveland Research that formed in 2006.  After writing research for institutional investors over the past 15 years, Mr. Whitmer now serves as the President of Market Research at CRC that provides insights and services across multiple industries including retail/foodservice, industrial, technology, and healthcare.

• Datassential MenuTrends  - an accurate tracking database of more than 7,000 chain and independent menus
• Insider™ -- photo-enabled tracking of national account menu activity, updated monthly
• Optimize™ -- a dynamic data-driven tool for maximizing consumer menu appeal
• iDEA™ -- the industry’s first customizable survey cross-tabbing  solution

Kim Walker, a partner at the international law firm of Faegre Baker Daniels, is outside general counsel to the International Foodservice Manufacturers Association. He leads the firm’s international food and agriculture industry team and focuses his practice in the food, agribusiness litigation and antitrust areas. In his leadership role for the firm and its clients, Kim works out of the Des Moines, Minneapolis and Silicon Valley offices. He represents and manages the firm's relationships for clients such as Cargill, Hormel Foods Corporation, Ardent Mills, American Meat Institute, and Wells Enterprises (Blue Bunny), among others. Kim has been nationally ranked for several years for exemplary client service and noted by his clients as an effective business and industry partner. He is a frequent speaker at industry and legal conferences.

Steve Toeniskoetter is a food industry lawyer and a member of the firm's food litigation and regulatory practice, as well as the national food and agriculture industry team. The food litigation and regulatory practice is nationally ranked by Chambers USA along with only seven other national firms. He represents clients in the food and agricultural industries in litigation involving food safety, food labeling, general products liability defense, indemnity, breach of contract, consumer fraud and class actions.  Steve counsels and provides risk management advice to food, feed and dietary supplement industry clients on food labeling and safety matters, including product recalls, regulatory compliance and regulatory interactions. He is a frequent writer and speaker on food and agriculture industry issues. Licensed to practice in California and Minnesota, he serves clients from the firm's Minneapolis and Palo Alto offices.

With a breadth of retail, food service, operations, finance and public company experience, Steve DeSutter has joined FOCUS Brands in March 2014. Prior to joining FOCUS Brands Mr. DeSutter served as President and CEO of Stripes LLC and Executive Vice President of Susser Holdings its parent company from June 2008 to February 2013.  He began his career at British Petroleum where he worked in a variety of operations, marketing, communications and finance roles during his 18 years at the company.

Most recently Steve has been a member of the Board of Directors and past officer for the United Way of Coastal Bend, The Coastal Bend Blood Center, The Texas State Aquarium and the Corpus Christi Economic Development Corporation. He also served most recently as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS).

As President & CEO of Ground Round IOC since February 2010, Jack is responsible for the overall leadership of Ground Round Restaurants, serving as the face of the brand, Chair of a six member Board of Directors, and providing overall leadership, support and communications to senior staff and independent owner groups operating 28 Ground Round restaurants in 10 U.S. States.

Scott Saunders is Senior Vice President of Supply Chain Integration for HAVI Global Solutions (HGS). In this role, Scott is responsible for Supply Chain Integration processes which include: Supply Chain process development and deployment, Data Management, Supply Planning and Distribution Services.

Prior to this, he served as Vice President, Global Supply Chain at Moen Incorporated, an operating company of Fortune Brands, Inc., and one of the world's largest producers of residential and commercial plumbing products. At Moen, Scott was responsible for global sourcing and procurement, planning, demand and supply management, distribution, domestic and international transportation, logistics, new product planning and sourcing (introducing over 500 products a year), customer service, and order fulfillment.

Mark Allen is President & CEO of the International Foodservice Distributors Association (IFDA), a McLean, Virginia based trade organization representing the $235 billion foodservice distribution industry.  Allen oversees IFDA’s day-to-day operations, including all initiatives in education, research and government relations. He also serves on IFDA’s Board of Directors, which is composed of the presidents and CEOs of 25 major foodservice distribution companies. 

In her role as president and chief executive officer of the National Restaurant Association, Dawn Sweeney has been instrumental in focusing the mission of the Association through a unique, multi-year strategic plan, highlighting key areas of opportunity within the restaurant industry. Since taking the helm at the end of 2007, Sweeney has led the Association in addressing a wide-range of issues, offering services and products that promote the industry, and helping individual operators and large multi-unit companies succeed. She has strengthened the organization’s core operations, including consolidating its Foundation around a mission to develop a strong workforce and build the next generation of industry leaders. 

Sweeney’s 25+ years of marketing, advocacy and policy experience include serving as president and CEO of AARP Services, the wholly owned taxable subsidiary of AARP, and holding leadership positions at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, a membership organization of consumer-owned electric utilities, and the International Dairy Foods Association, the trade association for the nation's dairy foods industry, where she played a key role in the launch of the “milk moustache” advertising campaign. 

Sweeney has been named one of the perennial top association CEOs in the country for each of the past several years. She serves on the boards the U.S. Travel Association and the Women’s Foodservice Forum. She is also a charter member of Child Obesity 180, a unique initiative of private, public, non-profit and academic leaders who have committed to taking a leadership role in preventing childhood obesity through evidence-based initiatives.

Steve Romaniello joined Roark in 2008. He is actively involved with Roark's investments in FOCUS Brands, Wingstop, Corner Bakery, Anytime Fitness, and Arby's.  Prior to joining Roark, Roamaniello was CEO of Focus Brands.  Under Romaniello's leadership, FOCUS Brands acquired Cinnabon in 2004, Schlotzsky's in 2006, and Moe's Southwest Grill in 2007.  Romaniello has also been successful in the hospitality segment.

Wally Doolin is Chairman and Founder of TDn2K (Transforming data into knowledge), a performance measurement company.  Additionally, he serves as a Trustee Emeritus of the National Restaurant Association and National Restaurant Association's Education Foundation where he is a past Chairman.

Tim is a partner in The Partnering Group consulting with manufacturers in go-to-market strategy, innovation and marketing.   He has more than 20 years experience in CPG marketing and strategy.  He worked at Kraft Foods for 17 years across a number of categories, brands and business units, including as Director of Strategy for the $2B North American Foodservice division.

Tim has experience in marketing and category management, P&L management, strategic planning, Foodservice and consulting, and has developed and launched hundreds of new products.  He has led consulting engagements with a variety of B2B and B2C clients to tackle a broad range of portfolio, innovation and research challenges - from building innovation strategies to identifying high potential market-based opportunities spaces, to defining and testing new product and service platforms and developing launch programs.

After leaving Kraft in 2010 Tim joined an innovation strategy consulting firm working with both B2B and B2C clients to help develop growth strategies and more robust innovation pipelines.

Tim has an MBA from McMaster University in Ontario, and a Bachelor of Commerce degree in marketing.

Doug Morrison is a Partner and Category Leadership Practice Director with The Partnering Group (TPG).  He has been with TPG for 17 years providing total system consulting solutions to Manufacturers and Retailers across the globe.

During his time with TPG, Doug has led more than 200 strategic consulting engagements with a focus on Category Management, Strategy, Shopper-Marketing and Retail Innovation.

Doug has led project work in more than 12 different channels of trade with major Manufacturers and Retailers in several different countries and languages.  This project work led Doug to pioneer many new techniques in insights-driven Category Management.  He is a recognized expert throughout the industry for his work in driving and publishing Best Practices Category Management work.

Additionally, Doug has been a long time advisor with various Insight Councils and Committees, Nielsen and IRI and was recently presented with the Flannigan Award by his peers for Leadership and Integrity.