The Women's Foodservice Forum held its annual Executive Summit July 30 through August 1 at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix. Designed for executive level foodservice professionals to gain the insights and connections they need to overcome the challenges in their careers, the roster for this year’s event included significant industry players like IHOP President Jean Birch, Ventura Foods EVP of Sales & Marketing John Buckles and Arby’s Restaurant Group President Hala Moddelmog as opening speakers. They also served as panelists during an open forum discussion moderated by WFF President/CEO Fritzi Woods where they shared their insights on how to handle difficult career transitions and how they ultimately transformed these hardships into very successful careers in foodservice.
“The purpose of Executive Summit is to educate, inform and connect our industry leaders by sharing relative content and providing intimate access to renowned industry leaders,” Woods says. “The addition of these three speakers to our already impressive lineup will make the event even more enlightening and valuable for our attendees.”
Other Executive Summit presenters included Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management Professor Robert C. Wolcott, Ph.D.; Associate Professor Tanya Menon; and Clinical Professor of Management and Finance Steven Rogers. Keynote speakers included Dov Seidman, Founder, Chairman and CEO of LRN and author of HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything, as well as Dev Patnaik, CEO of Jump Associates and author of Wired to Care: How companies prosper when they create widespread empathy.