Top Women in Metro New York Foodservice & Hospitality 2017

2017 Top Women in Metro New York Foodservice & Hospitality
Presented by Women’s Foodservice Forum
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NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHERS

For over a quarter of a century, we have had the opportunity while publishing Total Food Service to follow the restaurant and foodservice industry.  It never ceases to amaze us as we watch menu trends come and go that there remains one constant in creating success: saying yes. As we interview professionals from all aspects of the industry, we see that what used to be location-location-location has clearly evolved into people-people-people.

People have the ability to SAY YES to fulfill a customer’s needs. So it should come as no surprise that the proverbial glass ceiling continues to crack as the only priority among industry professionals is the ability to consistently create a signature customer dining experience in a Manhattan restaurant, a New Jersey corporate dining facility or a Long Island healthcare facility.

So we are convinced that gender bias is being replaced by the ability of a person in a kitchen, waiting on a customer or helping select the right cut of beef to SAY YES and deliver a world-class customer experience.

That’s why once again we have dedicated this issue to profiling the impact that women have had on the Tri-State foodservice scene.  They have risen to amazing heights and turned the Greater NYC Marketplace into the epicenter of the world’s restaurant and food service industry.

Certainly, it’s easy to point to the growth of culinary programs and food programming on television, which has led to pockets of culinary excellence in Metro NYC and across the country but in the Tri-State area, these talents reach far beyond just the back of the house.

There are incredible women making their marks on everything from a Manhattan hospital serving 5,000 plus patient meals every day to an iconic food writer in a major NYC newspaper to a Westchester executive recruiter who wheels and deals on behalf of top investment firms to find CEOs to run some of the world’s largest restaurant chains.

We owe special thanks to a number of colleagues that represent many segments of the Tri-State foodservice community. They were gracious with their time to help us build this list of the “best and the brightest” women in our industry. We selected categories based on that input.

Our mission for the criteria of this list was to identify innovators within each of those major disciplines of the foodservice and hospitality industry. Women are having a major impact on the bricks and mortar design of restaurants, and the sales of equipment supplies and service. They also have major impact on what food and beverage is being served on local menus, and the management and marketing of foodservice facilities.

Our goal is to share some of their amazing stories and to make all of us realize that any goal is accomplishable with a measure of hard work and some good luck sprinkled in.

Leslie Klashman
Fred Klashman
Publishers , Total Food Service

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Jennifer Baum, Bullfrog & Baum, New York, NY

Jennifer Baum founded Bullfrog + Baum, the award-winning marketing agency in 2000. Since launching she has played an integral part in the changing landscape of hospitality marketing, successfully evolving to meet the industry’s ever changing demands. Jennifer began her career far from the hospitality world, cutting her teeth amid blue chips and the Fortune 500.  Following undergraduate work at Union College, she received her MBA from New York University. Combining her corporate savvy with a knack for making a brand successful, Baum has built an agency that not only launches new concepts, but brings strategy to their continued success.  She is known and respected in the industry as a creative, energetic thinker who values honesty and integrity above all else. Baum is a member of WCR, Les Dames d’Escoffier, City Harvest Food Council, IACP, The James Beard Foundation, actively participates in City Meals on Wheels programs. In addition, she is a guest lecturer at The Institute of Culinary Education.

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Grace Best, Imperial Bag & Paper Co., LLC, Jersey City, NJ

Grace Best works as Director of Marketing at Imperial Bag & Paper Co but it certainly doesn’t stop there. Grace graduated from Dartmouth with a BA for Psychology. Grace has had a major role of bringing the sustainability movement across Foodservice and Janitorial Sanitation. Grace has also become the Green Associate for Imperial and has brought a variety of green initiatives to the company. Grace has worked to make their brand new state of the art warehouse a LEED Certified facility and is able to provide their food service clients with guidance on their venture into sustainability, whether it is involving levels or recyclability, renewable recourses, or composting, Grace is able to guide their clients with eco-friendly solutions.

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Anne Burrell, TV Personality, New York, NY

Anne Burrell is as big as it gets when it comes to the culinary world. Spiky haired, Ohio born Anne Burrell attended the Culinary Institute of America and has become a world famous celebrity chef. After working with some of New York’s top restaurants like Gusto and Centro Vinoteca she had to part ways to pursue other career obligations. After a long stretch with Food Network on shows like “Secrets of a Restaurant Chef”, Worst Cooks in America, Chef Wanted and Iron Chef, Anne has returned to the NYC restaurant scene with her partner Phil Casaceli. Phil & Anne’s Good Time Lounge is opening soon in Brooklyn and will be a funky, cool and homey spot.

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Dawn Cascio, The Valley Hospital, Ridgewood, NJ

Dawn Cascio is a woman who wears many hats. As the Director of Food & Nutrition at The Valley Hospital she has become a crucial member for the food service industry. Dawn began her career as a clinical dietician, after working all over the spectrum she became Assistant Manager to a 250-bed community hospital before taking over at Valley Hospital. Dawn serves on a board of a variety of agencies and administrators. This includes the Greater New Jersey Society for Healthcare Food Administrators, The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, The Association for Healthcare Food Service, and The New Jersey Dietetic Association. Needless to say Dawn is here to make the world a healthier place and to help better the lives of her patients.

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Amanda Cohen, Dirt Candy, New York, NY

Dirt Candy may not initially sound like the kind of place you’d want to eat, but one visit sows the seed for many return visits. Canadian born Amanda Cohen is the chef and owner of Dirt Candy, an award-winning vegetable restaurant on New York City’s Lower East Side. The restaurant’s original location only had 18 seats and was open for six years, during which time it became the first vegetarian restaurant in 17 years to receive two stars from the New York Times, was recognized by the Michelin Guide five years in a row, and won awards from Gourmet Magazine, the Village Voice, and many others. Dirt Candy opened a second location in January 2015 and was the first restaurant in the city to eliminate tipping and offer profit sharing to its employees. Amanda was also the first vegetarian chef to compete on Iron Chef America and her comic book cookbook, Dirt Candy: A Cookbook, is the first graphic novel cookbook to be published in North America. Currently in its sixth printing, the cookbook celebrates everything Amanda loves about vegetables.

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Linda DiLisio, Casa DiLisio, Mt. Kisco, NY

As VP Operations of Casa DiLisio, Linda has been in the industry for over 30 years. During that time she has helped her parents, Lou and Lucy DiLisio market and build Casa DiLiso’s business to where it is today. Linda is a former IBM employee, learned the ins and outs of the industry and is now responsible for the daily operation of their plant and representing the company at the 35 trade shows that Casa DiLisio participates in every year. The company’s brand of sauces fits all of the criteria for Food Service and sells their products to everyone from Cruise Lines to Chain accounts to White Table Cloth establishments and every kind of operation in between.

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Karen DiPeri, HMG+, New York, NY

When your service pro team is literally serving the presidents of every major country in the world, you’ve got to be better than good, you’ve got to be GREAT.  That’s what Karen DiPeri, President of HMG+ instills each and every day running New York’s top hospitality staffing company.  Karen started out as a dining room waiter at the iconic Milleridge Inn and has held almost all front of the house positions. Now with over 25 years in hospitality, Karen devotes time to helping promote both the hospitality and staffing industry.  She currently sits on the Marketing Committee for Society for the Hospitality and Foodservice Management (SHFM), is a member of the American Staffing Association, the NY Staffing Association, Journee, and is an Alumni of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program.

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Alice Elliot, The Elliot Group, Tarrytown, NY

Alice Elliot once said she really does “drink the Kool Aid” of changing people’s careers – or, more specifically, their lives.  Pegged in 2014 as one of the 50 most powerful people in the foodservice industry, Elliot is founder and CEO of the Executive Search firm The Elliot Group, which finds, simply, the best talent in the foodservice world.  In the constantly evolving foodservice world, that’s the one constant, and specializing in “human capital,” as she likes to put it, she brings her company’s executive search, human resources and leadership abilities to the job of matching phenomenal people with phenomenal jobs in the industry. Throughout her career Alice has been sought out for her insight and advice on trends in the industry and human capital issues.  And for more than 25 years, her firm hosted one of the industry’s most sought-after invitation-only events: the Elliot Leadership Conference.

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Amy Greenberg, Citibank, New York, NY

Food and finance don’t often go together but for Amy Greenberg, it’s a perfect fit. A Senior Vice President in global corporate services operations at Citi, Amy has served as a leader with over 25 years corporate services experience managing dining operations, fitness, and wellness organizations, all while strategically aligning her services with Citi’s core business. But this is not all she does.  She’s a recognized leader who has served as president of the Society for Hospitality and Foodservice Management (SHFM) Harvard University Dining Advisory Board, and Culinary Institute of America Society as member of the corporation and on its alumni committee. Amy gives back with her work at New York Cares. “Amy is a dedicated professional who you could always be assured would complete an assignment in a way that would exceed your expectations,” says Leo Farley, CFO at Envision EMI. “Regardless of the assignment, she is willing to give it her all.”

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Marilou Halvorsen, NJRHA, Trenton, NJ

Marilou Halvorsen is the President of the New Jersey Restaurant and Hospitality Association. She leads the organization and represents the Garden State’s 25,000 hospitality establishments, generating $14 billion in annual sales and employing over 311,000 people. Halvorsen took an interesting route to the leadership position of the NJRHA in 2012. She was Executive Director of the New Jersey Amusement Association and Jenkinson’s, which included a full portfolio of recreational activities around a boardwalk, including a hotel, ice cream shop, nightclub and zoo aquarium. “An association is just like a business,” Halvorsen says.  “My members are my customers. I have to make sure that their experience with the Restaurant Association is a good one whether it’s for member benefits, networking, or legislative initiatives. You know we need to make sure that they’re maximizing the value of their membership with the New Jersey Restaurant Association. Because without members you’re not an association.”

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Anita Lo, Annisa, New York, NY

Praise, honor and disaster have all visited Anita Lo, chef and owner of Annisa in New York City, but she is back on top today. She earned a degree in French language at Columbia University; she studied at Reid Hall—Columbia’s French language institute in Paris. And it was there she fell in love with the food culture and vowed to return. Lo interned under Guy Savoy and Michel Rostang.  Back in New York, Lo worked her way through all the stations at David Waltuck’s Chanterelle, developing her culinary style during her time at Mirezi.  In 2000, Lo opened Annisa (whose name means “women’’ in Arabic), an intimate, upscale restaurant in Greenwich Village serving Contemporary American cuisine, an instant hit.  But in June 2009 the same year The Village Voice named her “Best New Restaurant Chef”, a fire destroyed the restaurant entirely. But in April 2010, after a complete renovation of the original Barrow Street location, Lo reopened Annisa.  In February 2014, critic Pete Wells re-reviewed Annisa in The New York Times, giving the restaurant three stars, calling her food “remarkable” and “impressive.”

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Claire Poulos, Table To Table, Englewood, NJ

Claire Poulos is the founder of Table to Table, which helps 60-hunger relief organizations in New Jersey. She has received the Russ Berrie Award for Making a Difference. It was a “golden handshake” from IBM which propelled Claire Poulos into the desire to make the world a better place. Claire decided to attend culinary school and went to the Culinary Institute of America. Claire admits she hadn’t planned on working as a chef. “I was just always interested in food. I come from a big food family,” Poulos says. “I thought, I’ll just take a year off, go do something that I want to do. And then I’ll figure out what else I’m doing with my career. So, after I got out of cooking school, I did some work with the James Beard House because they were associated with the school.”  Here’s where the making the world a better place comes in.  Claire established a new service, Table to Table, which helps 60 hunger relief agencies in Northeast New Jersey. What makes it really outstanding is that it gets no government funding and is completely supported by corporate and private donors.  Soon she had buy-ins from Whole Foods, Alpine Country Club, Arthur’s Landing in Weehawken.  The program exploded, with people wanting to give her food.  Last year, Table to Table served fifteen million meals. Looks like she’s definitely made the world a better place.

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Julie Rose, Sweet Hospitality Group, New York, NY

Julie Rose is president and founder of Sweet Hospitality Group. Julie originally moved to NYC to write musical theater, her career in hospitality started when she began selling sodas and candy at a theater. Julie began to bake and people were buying them. After some help from some folks at the Restaurant Association, Julie found herself forming a concession business for theaters.  It all progressed from that point; Julie began Cocktail on Broadway. When people began stealing our menus, they knew it was a success. From there Sweet Hospitality was born and has now become a staple for Broadway and Lincoln Center theatregoers.  Julie embodies the ethos of Broadway with every show-inspired cocktail and gourmet food, feeding the senses in endless imaginative ways.

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Daniela Soto-Innes, Cosme, New York, NY

Daniela Soto-Innes comes from a long line of women who love food and cooking. From her Grandmother teaching her to bake to being inspired in middle school from the only master chef in Texas at the time.  At the age of 15 Daniela interned at the Woodlands Waterway Marriott, where she continued working for an additional three years. Daniela is a graduate of Le Cordon Blue College of Culinary Arts. Daniela was offered a full-time position working alongside Chef Enrique Olvera. As an opening Chef de Cuisine at Cosme, she worked alongside Olvera and fellow chef de cuisine, Mariana Villegas. Daniela is a rising star with her refreshing philosophy on food. Daniela believes that the simplest foods can inspire the imagination, most of all; she makes her dishes meaningful by finding the secret life in each ingredient. Daniela is also the winner of the 2016 James Beard Foundation Rising Star of the Year.

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Roxanne Spruance, Kingsley, New York, NY

Roxanne Spruance is the executive Chef and Co-Owner of Kingsley, the Zagat 2017 Top Newcomer and Best American Restaurant in NYC. Roxanne has been in the kitchen from a young age where she would bake pies and bread with her dad and making and preserving jams with her mom. After deciding the kitchen was where she wanted to be she moved to New York City to work with Wylie Dufresne’s WD-50, when he was Food and Wine’s Best Chef in 2013. After two years she was offered a sous-chef position at Blue Hill. After her time training and working for acclaimed culinary chefs from all over the world Roxanne finally got to open Kinglsey. “Kingsley is my middle name and I’ve always known that I wanted to do my own restaurant. I knew that I needed to just do my own thing right now,” said Spruance. After opening Kingsley it has quickly become recognized as one of the top new restaurants in NYC.

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Morgan Tucker, Little M Tucker, Paterson, NJ

It would seem that Morgan Tucker had no choice.  Growing up in a family that built the largest foodservice distribution business on the East Coast, M. Tucker, it’s not likely that law or medicine would have held her interest for long.  Instead, she decided to carry the company – founded by her father and grandfather – into the third generation, establishing herself and her imprint, Little M Tucker, which provides specialized equipment and restaurant supplies to a growing hub of high-end restaurants in Manhattan.  She’s also an expert on tabletop trends and writes a monthly column for Total Food Service. After graduating with honors from the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration in 2007, Morgan worked for New York’s Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group and Steve Hanson’s BR Guest Restaurant Group, before beginning her journey at M. Tucker. After seven years in her family business, Morgan currently oversees a highly successful distribution sales team in the company, passionately serving Manhattan’s hottest operations under the Little M Tucker brand as Director of Business Development. “I grew up in love with hospitality, but I had no intention of doing what my father did, being a CEO of a company and sitting behind a desk from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.  I idolized Steve Hanson and that was what I wanted to be when I was a teenager,” Tucker says. The rest, as she says, is history.

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Victoria Vega, Unidine Corp, Boston, MA

In 2013 Unidine Corp. named Victoria Vega, Division Vice President for Business Services, where she now leads the company’s Corporate & Education Culinary Groups. Victoria refined her sales abilities as Director of Business Development at CulinArt. She also spent over a dozen years with Restaurant Associates as the Vice President of Operations for Corporate and Educational Dining with a client list including prominent financial companies, media organizations, key industry leaders and retail giants. Her career began with Aramark business services. An active member of SHFM, Victoria currently serves on the association’s board of directors. She received the Richard Ysmael Distinguished Service Award in 2014 for her service to the workplace hospitality industry. Victoria is also an original member of the Women’s Council Steering Committee and simultaneously served as the Chair of Education and later the Resources & Alliances committees. Victoria has also volunteered for committee roles with SHFM’s annual Critical Issues Conference, chairing the 2013 event and served as an advisor to the 35th Annual National Conference Planning Committee. As a UMass Amherst Alumni she also works with the UMass Steering Committee and is an Executive Leadership mentor for distinguished seniors.

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Elizabeth Weiss, H. Weiss, Armonk, NY

Elizabeth Weiss grew up in the restaurant equipment and design industry. Her father the late Lewis Weiss was an iconic figure in Metro New York foodservice. Liz Weiss and her brother Jim, represent the third generation of the family to work in the family operated enterprise. After attending Michigan State University, Liz joined the Westchester based business. She currently operates the firm’s Elizabeth Contracting Division that specializes in assisting Metro New York restaurants and foodservice professionals with the creation of tabletop strategies. Her monthly column in TFS educates and entertains readers looking to stay on top of the latest trends in tabletop design which has made her a nationally known figure.