Speakers

Rev Ciancio is a New York City restaurant owner and knows exactly how hard it is to operate and brand a hospitality business. He is a hospitality marketing consultant, customer and technology evangelist at Branded Strategic Hospitality, with more than 20 years experience in B2B digital marketing and business development, specializing in hospitality marketing, content, local SEO, reputation management and demand generation. He helps technology companies, brands and restaurants to acquire and retain more customers. Rev is known as an “expert burger taster,” pens hospitality and marketing tips on his Instagram @revciancio, as well as his LinkedIn Profile and hosts the Restaurant Marketing Podcast. He believes that Pizza is a religion.

Larissa Caballero is a growth-focused restaurant marketer. As Director of Advertising, she leads go-to-market strategy for new restaurant openings and drives sustained same-store growth through audience insight, localized media strategy, and high-performing creative. With more than a decade of digital marketing experience, Larissa specializes in building awareness, trial, and loyalty in competitive, student-dense markets. She is especially energized by turning grand-opening buzz into lasting customer relationships and long-term brand affinity.

Cherryh Cansler is VP of Events for Connect Media and publisher of FastCasual.com. She has been covering the restaurant industry since 2012. Her byline has appeared in Forbes, The Kansas City Star and American Fitness magazine, among many others.

Hillary Frei is an American marketing executive who has led some of the country’s most iconic and enduring consumer brands including Cheerios, FAO Schwarz and Wetzel’s Pretzels. Trained in finance with a passion for brand building, Hillary is a full stack marketer with an outstanding track record of revenue growth.

Ramsey Gilbertsen is the Founder and President of Budget Branders, a premier supplier of printed disposable cups and foodservice items. He began his career by launching Fry Nation, a Michigan based restaurant, where he spent five years managing operations and brand development before successfully exiting in 2019. Today, he partners with multi-unit and growing restaurant brands to deliver scalable, cost-effective custom packaging solutions that strengthen brand presence and ensure reliable supply.

Srishti Handa is the Vice President of Marketing - Brand and Growth at Dave’s Hot Chicken. For nearly five years, she’s helped shape the voice, identity, and growth of one of the fastest-growing restaurant brands in the country, driving national campaigns, menu innovation, and global expansion. Before joining Dave’s, she led marketing for a female-founded produce company, managing retail partnerships with Whole Foods, Kroger, and Bristol Farms. Her career spans food, retail, and consumer brands, including leading marketing for a lifestyle company acquired by India’s largest retailer and overseeing brand strategy for a plant-based frozen food company across Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. That journey eventually led her to launch her own frozen food brand, The Temperamental Chef, sold in premium Indian grocery stores and is rooted in her belief that vegetables deserve better PR. Her work has earned her recognition from Forbes 30 Under 30 and, more recently, AdAge 40 Under 40.

Stacey Kane has more than 25 years of experience working with multi-unit restaurant chains as a Head of Marketing and Marketing Consultant. She has worked with such brands as California Tortilla, ThinkFood Group (now Jose Andres Group), Subway and East Coast Wings. Known for her incredible creativity and obsession with data she was one of the pioneers of using social media in the restaurant space and has been named a Top 20 Movers and Shakers by Fast Casual Magazine six times. Her passion is leading emerging brands as they scale for growth and mentoring small teams. Currently, Stacey is a fractional CMO for several fast casual brands including Fresh Baguette, Garden Catering, Mahana Fresh, Mamoun's Falafel and Ziggi's Coffee. Kane is passionate about the industry. She has been a National Pro-Start Judge for 5 years and after serving as a consultant, she was asked to sit on the board of CORE is a national non-profit that is dedicated to providing support to the food & beverage service industry in times of crisis.

Abhinav Kapur is the co-founder and CEO of Bikky, a Customer Data Platform (CDP) built exclusively for multi-unit restaurants. Bikky integrates across all in-store and off-premise channels to help brands understand how marketing, menu, and operational decisions impact guest frequency and lifetime value. This empowers everyone from the C-Suite to the marketing team to make better, data-driven decisions across the guest experience. Bikky powers data-based decisions for brands like MOD Pizza, Dave's Hot Chicken, SPB Hospitality, Krystal, and Eggs Up Grill, and thousands of other locations across the U.S.

Zack Oates is an author, husband, father, entrepreneur, and hot tub aficionado (but not in that order, necessarily). He grew up in restaurants before getting into startups. He was voted Top 100 Entrepreneurs, rang the NASDAQ bell, won the world’s biggest business competition, has been to 50 countries, and started 3 companies. He went on over 1,000 dates before he got married and wrote a book, “Dating Never Works…Until it Does.” He currently is Founder and CEO of Ovation, the no. 1 restaurant feedback platform in America, voted Top 50 Most Influential Supplier by Nation’s Restaurant News, and host of “Give an Ovation: A Podcast for Restaurants.”

Evan Pardue is the Director of Brand & CX at Condado Tacos, one of the fastest-growing brands in the Next Gen restaurant space. Under his leadership, Condado has earned national recognition—named to the Inc. 5000’s Top Private Companies, Chain Store Age’s Breakout Retailers, and FastCasual.com’s Top 100 Movers & Shakers. Pardue has tripled the brand's loyalty program, earning top industry honors including PARTech Punchh’s 2024 All Star Loyalty Program and the 2023 Digital Innovator Award. Before joining Condado, he led digital marketing strategy for Chick-fil-A operators across the Houston metro, while consulting owner-operators navigating multi-unit expansion. Outside of hospitality, he contributes as a guest critic for PaperCity Magazine, covering museum exhibitions outside Texas.

Originally from Georgia, Amanda Parker’s career has been shaped by a rare blend of operations leadership, people development, and brand-building. She began her professional journey with Chick-fil-A in the Charleston area, where she advanced rapidly through leadership roles spanning HR, outside sales and marketing, operations, and quality and training. During her tenure, she developed and implemented multi-store training programs and helped elevate guest experience and team performance across multiple locations. Drawn to the opportunity to help build something from the ground floor, Amanda joined Vicious Biscuit in 2022 as Area Director for the Charleston market and later transitioned into marketing leadership to support the brand’s rapid growth. As the brand entered a new stage of growth and franchising, she quickly became a driving force behind the development of scalable brand standards and franchise-ready marketing toolkits designed to keep the guest experience consistent systemwide. Amanda also played a pivotal role in launching Vicious Biscuit’s first-ever loyalty rewards program, overseeing implementation, branding, and design architecture. In 2025, Amanda was named a QSR Magazine 35 Young Leaders to Watch honoree.

C.J. Ramirez has been a critical player in Dog Haus’ success since 2013, aiding the brand’s mission to elevate American classics into chef-driven culinary creations. Dog Haus has since expanded from its Pasadena, Calif., base to more than 75 locations across 20 states, including 50+ brick-and-mortar restaurants. Using his wealth of knowledge in designing branding strategies that build strong corporate identities, C.J. oversees high-performing creative, marketing and technology teams at Dog Haus that deliver growth through innovation for the brand and its franchisees.

Dan Sokolik serves as the Vice President of Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken, a distinguished 130-unit chain lauded as the #1 Fast Food Fried Chicken in the 2023 USA Today’s 10 Best Readers’ Choice Awards. Sokolik’s journey with Lee’s began through his role as the brand manager on their account with a prior ad agency until he officially joined the Lee’s team at the outset of 2022. His tenure has been marked by spearheading a comprehensive brand overhaul. This refresh has unveiled an updated visual identity, alongside the introduction of a new mobile app and loyalty program. With a career spanning over 20 years in QSR marketing, Sokolik has valuable experience across corporate, ad agency, and franchisee levels. He served over ten years at Subway in various capacities, including corporate field marketing and as an agency account director. Prior to Subway, Sokolik also managed a creative agency team for McDonald’s and served as the marketing director for a multi-unit Domino’s Pizza franchise.

Pedro Uchôa is the CEO & CMO of TAP — a wellness-driven, 100% gluten-free, Brazilian fast-casual brand across NYC and Miami. A former professional soccer player turned marketer, Pedro brings 12+ years of agency experience into building one of the most culturally distinctive brands in fast casual over the last 4 years. From a 33,000-member loyalty program to an average of 4.8 stars across all locations, his philosophy is simple: hospitality IS the campaign. And the proof is in the numbers: 88% of TAP's guests are non-Brazilian — authentic culture, marketed with purpose, connects with everyone.

Julie Wade is a senior marketing strategist and operator with 20+ years of experience building and scaling restaurant and retail brands across franchise and corporate systems. She is the founder of Barrago Marketing and currently serves as Fractional CMO for Crazy Pita, helping brands align strategy, systems, and execution into measurable growth. She has led marketing for 100+ locations in 17 states, managed multimillion-dollar budgets, teams of dozens, and driven sustained growth through brand strategy, digital innovation, loyalty, and new restaurant openings—including as Head of Marketing at Taziki’s Mediterranean Café. Julie is known for blending creativity with operational rigor and is a recognized industry leader and multi-time honoree.

I’m a communications and marketing strategist passionate about connecting brands with their communities. At Ziggi’s Coffee, I contribute to external PR and marketing efforts to elevate brand visibility, manage media relationships, and create campaigns that highlight our community-focused business model. With experience in public relations, marketing, social media, and program management, I thrive at the intersection of storytelling, brand growth, and mission-driven work. My goal is to build authentic connections, drive engagement, and deliver measurable impact for the organizations I represent.