This workshop is designed to provide the necessary skills for developing strategies that promote business, achieve buy-in and service excellence. The content is designed for the entrepreneur interested in expanding their brand, solidifying their business, and growing their customer base.

This workshop is designed to provide the necessary skills for developing strategies that promote business, achieve buy-in and service excellence. The content is designed for the entrepreneur interested in expanding their brand, solidifying their business, and growing their customer base.

This provocative and highly engaging session includes an interactive theater exercise to analyze cultural challenges that may impact a leader's ability manage successfully in the workplace as well as meeting the needs of a global marketplace. Learn how to have breakthrough discussions with people on your teams and in your company around diversity and inclusion. Leave with a resource kit and key learning to help coach others and to deal effectively with conversations around nuances between cultural norms and stereotypes.

In addition, senior leadership representing top companies will discuss the real value behind culturally competent workforces as essential to remain competitive. Help lead change in your organization by better understanding the issues, collaborating on solutions and elevating your leadership skills to thrive in the current multicultural work environment.

Through a moderated panel discussion, women entrepreneurs will discuss the attraction, challenges and fulfillment of running their own business. Whether you are a "solopreneur," "entrepreneur"of a venture, an "intraprenuer" working within a large company, or just thinking about any of the above...you will be energized by the conversation.

The discussion will include stories, insights, leasons learned and words of wisdom. This panel will relate their experiences to the incredible material presented by Dr. Simon Mak and Margaret Heffernan. The panel features a notable dealmaker and consultant, a multi-unit restaurant owner, a multi-unit franchisee and a renowned industry speaker and consultant.

• Elizabeth Blau: Founder / CEO, Blau & Associates
  
• Valerie Daniels-Carter, President/CEO, V&J Foods
  
• Stephanie Shimp: Co-Founder, Blue Plate Restaurant Group
  
• Kathleen Wood: Founder, Kathleen Wood Partners
  

1. How did you choose and entrepreneurial career track?
2. What type of training assisted you in your success?
3. Did you have a mentor? How did you find one? How did it help?
4. Describe some of the success and obstacles that have assisted you in your business.
5. Pass on "one pearl of wisdom" that made a difference in your success.

Diversified viewpoints are real - discover the secrets of how great organizations keep teams of all ages, genders, and race moving forward through motivation, communication, and perspective.

• Working together means profits!
• Profits allow more innovation.
• Innovation secures longevity.

Imagine: Reducing turnover by 30 percent or more. Having the potential for double-digit growth. Significantly increasing employee engagement. Now more than ever, leaders need to be able to achieve these outcomes. Using stories in project management, organizational change, leader development, and strategic planning can help you and your organization achieve these results—and more. Learn about the key insights gathered from more than 70 organizations worldwide that are using stories to strengthen their performance.

As Baby Boomers retire in droves, businesses will have to replace them with the next generation of high performing employees and cultivate these very different workers into future leaders. To prepare for this shift, companies will need a talent management strategy to successfully develop and retain a next generation of top talent. But we all know this: what makes a recent grad tick is very different than what a 65 year old retiree expects. Cultivating a new generation of high performers will mean learning how they communicate, what motivates their loyalties, and ultimately what drives them to succeed.

While risk-taking is encouraged of emerging leaders who desire career advancement, there are some situations in which the risks taken will be deemed unacceptable. In these situations, a risk mitigation plan is critical in maintaining the business strategy of the organization.

For risks that may be taken and cannot be prevented, a strategy to minimize the impact the risk places on the business is essential.

This interactive session provides the participants with a unique opportunity to engage in discussion with an economist and attendee peer groups on the curret macroeconomic and financial environment impacting foodservice.

Part 1 of the program will demonstrate how financial statement data can be used to evaluate financial performance and to forecast future resource needs.

How does a leader in today's world take financial information, which provides a historical perspective, and apply it to an ever-changing landscape facing companies in real time? This educational session will help leaders utilize standard financial statements to transform their thoughts into actions used in critical business decisions. Attendees are anchored by a brief tutorial on financial terms followed by an engaging interactive session where speakers will discuss real-world case studies. This includes an in-depth review of successes and failures where leaders hone their wisdom and judgment. Whether Vice President or C-Leader, you will learn the new rules of financial engagement: corporate loan and banking practices, use of capital and credit, contingency planning, when to hold, when to fold and other visible and invisible impacts on the balance sheet. The intelligent understanding and use of Financial statements has never been a more important skill in maintaining an organization's existence!

This educational session provides the participant an opportunity to engage in a case study and participate in a conversation through the perspectives of an economist, Food Service executive officer, and a financial investment principal.

Within networks, there is typically an individual who fills a potentially powerful position known as a "structural hole." A person who occupies a structural hole maintains connections to people in his or her organization who are not themselves connected to one another.  This position can be a very powerful one for men, giving them access to information not necessarily shared by everybody, allowing them to draw on the skills and points of view of a diverse population, and enabling them to be effective at many different levels of an organization. This position turns out to be less helpful for women. Far more important, and useful for women, it turns out, is having a strong advocate in a powerful position in the network.

This session will explore issues related to organizational strategy. Specifically, it will help participants understand what strategy is, and the role all employees and managers can play in the implementation of the company's strategy on a daily basis. The session will use the concept of brand strategy as a crucial component in achieving strategic advantage in the marketplace. We will discuss how participants can (and should) use their organization's brand strategy to guide all operational strategies and decisions. We will discuss how all employees and managers can contribute to building strategic advantage for an organization by understanding the organization's core brand values to our daily behavior, the behavior of our direct reports, and the operations inside our departments. The session will be interactive so please come prepared to participate!

How successful have you been at initiating changes in strategies, culture, procedures, products, technology, or equipment at work? What sorts of stumbling blocks have gotten in the way? When changes are introduced within an organization, they often impact far more than anyone initially anticipated. As a result, deadlines get pushed out, actual project costs increase, and frustration mounts. It's not unusual for the true benefits of the change to never be fully realized. Why does this happen? Organizational change requires a different set of considerations, tools, and technologies than individual or small group change.

This interactive session provides the participants with a unique opportunity to engage in discussion with an economist and attendee peer groups on the curret macroeconomic and financial environment impacting foodservice.

Part 2 of the program will move into Managerial Accounting, focusing on using relevant cost and financial data to make better business decisions. A brief discussion of performance metrics and management control systems will also be offered.

This educational session provides the participant an opportunity to engage in a case study and participate in a conversation through the perspectives of an economist, Food Service executive officer, and a financial investment principal.

Today's economic meltdown is challenging even the most successful executives and organizations. The sudden collapse of financial institutions coupled with a lockdown in lending, has created a chaotic environment which requires that executives develop and utilize a new skill set. The old rules no longer apply. This panel of change agents, thought leaders and strategists will introduce, debate and dissect all the elements a contemporary leader needs to consider daily in making mission-critical decisions on the fly. Rather than being victimized by current events, leaders will learn how to adapt, become nimble and develop stronger self-confidence through panelists that make the tough decisions - Who stays who goes, how do we survive?

This session will highlight the benefits of having a network that delivers three distinct advantages: private information, access to diverse skills sets, and power.

The ability to influence individuals within organizations in order to complete job responsibilities is critical, yet how can that be done by an individual who is not "the boss?" Successful influencers offer value to those who support them by finding what motivates them and returning it in a way desired by the influencer.

Many companies fail to relate business strategies to the realities of their daily business practices. By ignoring the details, they often end up moving too fast into areas they cannot hope to succeed in and subsequently break the promise communicated to their customers. Strategy activation helps companies avoid this dangerous pitfall. Strategy activation is the bridge that links strategy and implementation. It ensures the promise made to the marketplace is fulfilled across every touch point.

While risk-taking is encouraged of emerging leaders who desire career advancement, there are some situations in which the risks taken will be deemed unacceptable. In these situations, a risk mitigation plan is critical in maintaining the business strategy of the organization.

For risks that may be taken and cannot be prevented, a strategy to minimize the impact the risk places on the business is essential.

This interactive session provides the participants with a unique opportunity to engage in discussion with an economist and attendee peer groups on the curret macroeconomic and financial environment impacting foodservice.

Part 1 of the program will demonstrate how financial statement data can be used to evaluate financial performance and to forecast future resource needs.

How does a leader in today's world take financial information, which provides a historical perspective, and apply it to an ever-changing landscape facing companies in real time? This educational session will help leaders utilize standard financial statements to transform their thoughts into actions used in critical business decisions. Attendees are anchored by a brief tutorial on financial terms followed by an engaging interactive session where speakers will discuss real-world case studies. This includes an in-depth review of successes and failures where leaders hone their wisdom and judgment. Whether Vice President or C-Leader, you will learn the new rules of financial engagement: corporate loan and banking practices, use of capital and credit, contingency planning, when to hold, when to fold and other visible and invisible impacts on the balance sheet. The intelligent understanding and use of Financial statements has never been a more important skill in maintaining an organization's existence!

This educational session offers content and strategy that drives decision making regarding the importance of doing business internationally and the cross-cultural issues and implications that influence business growth.

The growth strategies of companies operating in the foodservice space are a major area of focus at The Hale Group's practice. Looking from the outside-in, several situations beg the question: "What is driving growth?" The Hale Group reflects on strategies that work and those that are not producing positive results. From the data points, the future points to a new era that will soon emerge in foodservice. The Hale Group has developed processes and tools to help organizations gain perspective on the opportunities and challenges in the new era and to assist organizations in transforming their strategies, cultures and organizational capabilities to meet the requirements of this new operating environment.

"There's an elephant in the room that everyone knows about but no one is acknowledging. The elephant is implicit and undiscussable and lurks in every organization. Everyone talks around the elephant and thinks that everyone else knows about the elephant. But, until the elephant's presence is made explicit, the level of dialogue and therefore the quality of decision-making is limited. Sound familiar?"

Based on the book The Thin Book of Naming Elephants, the author, Sue Annis Hammond, and consultant, Shelley Gaynes, will highlight how great companies create an environment that encourages and listens to input from all levels of the organization.

This interactive session provides the participants with a unique opportunity to engage in discussion with an economist and attendee peer groups on the curret macroeconomic and financial environment impacting foodservice.

Part 2 of the program will move into Managerial Accounting, focusing on using relevant cost and financial data to make better business decisions. A brief discussion of performance metrics and management control systems will also be offered.

Today's economic meltdown is challenging even the most successful executives and organizations. The sudden collapse of financial institutions coupled with a lockdown in lending, has created a chaotic environment which requires that executives develop and utilize a new skill set. The old rules no longer apply. This panel of change agents, thought leaders and strategists will introduce, debate and dissect all the elements a contemporary leader needs to consider daily in making mission-critical decisions on the fly. Rather than being victimized by current events, leaders will learn how to adapt, become nimble and develop stronger self-confidence through panelists that make the tough decisions - Who stays who goes, how do we survive?

This educational session offers content and strategy that drives decision making regarding the importance of doing business internationally and the cross-cultural issues and implications that influence business growth.