David Baer | COO | Firenza

Dave Baer started as a driver for Domino’s Pizza while in college 1991. He managed a Domino’s Pizza store in 1994 and was Rookie manager of the year. From 1994-1998, he held positions of Supervisor, Senior Supervisor and Training Director of Corporate operations at Domino’s Pizza in the Northeast. From 1998-2012, he was VP of Operations of a 17 store Franchise. Since 2012, he has been the Director of Operations at the Zinga Franchise group and multi unit franchisee. From 2014 to present, he has been President and COO/ Co Founder of Firenza Pizza. He has since opened locations across the country and has over 100 in development.

Laura Rea Dickey | CEO | Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants

Laura Rea Dickey currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants, Inc. Laura served as the Chief Information Officer for eight years, and made the transition to CEO after excelling in her previous role. Laura has worked in the marketing and information technology field for over 15 years, and has led the marketing, IT and training departments at Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants, Inc. during her time there. Laura’s specialty is the intersection of technology and marketing, turning data insights into brand and business solutions. In her time as CIO, Laura implemented countless new initiatives to improve the Dickey’s brand.

Chris Ruszkowski | SVP of Marketing | Quiznos

Chris has led advertising and marketing initiatives at Quiznos since 2007. He oversees the brand’s positioning while maximizing strategies for all consumer-facing efforts including television advertising, in-store experience, local store marketing and digital/social communications. Chris started his advertising career in Chicago at McCann Erikson while also spending time at Frankel, Barnhart/CMI and McClain Finlon Advertising agencies. He has nearly twenty years of experience working on national brands including Frito Lay, United States Post Office, Visa, Qwest, Winter Park Resort and Breckenridge Resort prior to joining the Quiznos team.

MODERATOR

Paul Rubin | Chief Strategy Officer | PAR

Paul Rubin is Chief Strategy Officer for ParTech, Inc. Paul has more than 23 years of development experience and has dedicated over 18 years within the hospitality POS market. As a software professional, Paul architected and created new solutions for several large retail and food service companies such as Kinko’s, Jenny Craig, Starbucks, and Jack-in-the-Box. He later went on to work as the Director, Software Engineering at Ameranth, Inc., a provider of wireless and internet-based software solutions for hospitality, healthcare, and financial services companies. Paul founded Brink Software, a state of the art, cloud-based Point of Sale (POS) software solution that has been dominating in the fast casual and QSR space.

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