The Conti Educational Series
The Second Conti Syposium was held Tuesday, April 8th, 2003 in The Pavillion Theatre at Penn State's University Park Campus.
Symposium Recap
Mike Berry
President and Chief Operating Officer The Cheesecake Factory Restaurants,
Inc.
Mike Berry joined The Cheesecake Factory’s senior management team in May 2002 following his tenure as president of Barnes & Noble Booksellers. His multi-unit management expertise, creativity and extensive industry knowledge have been of great value to a company that operates 61 upscale, casual dining restaurants and a bakery production facility that produces more than 50 varieties of quality cheesecakes and other baked products for The Cheesecake Factory’s restaurants and other leading foodservice operators and retailers.
Mike Berry on the "to go" market
Prior to joining Barnes & Noble, Berry served as senior vice president of operations for The Disneyland Resort and Downtown Disney. In this capacity, he directed all revenue lines of business, including food and store operations, merchandise development and procurement and related guest and cast-oriented service departments. Before that, Berry spent 17 years in academic support management positions at Harvard University, the University of California at Irvine and the University of California at Los Angeles.
Berry is involved in many charitable activities, including serving on the boards of Second Harvest Food Banks in Boston and in Orange County, California. He has received several prestigious industry awards, including the IFMA Silver Plate, is a Conti Visiting Professor at Penn State and serves on the boards of Johnson and Wales University and Corinthian College.
Berry graduated magna cum laude from the University of New Hampshire and attended advanced management classes and programs at both Harvard University and UCLA. He is an avid reader and wine enthusiast who enjoys traveling and dining out.
Denise Marie
Fugo
President and Chief Executive Officer, Sammy’s
As president, CEO and co-founder of Cleveland-based Sammy’s, Denis Fugo is responsible for the financial, logistical, customer service and strategic/business planning functions of one of the most well-respected dining and catering companies in the United States. The company has successfully planned and executed gatherings for intimate groups of two as well as large receptions for as many as 6,000 guests.
Denise Marie Fugo on the role of restaurants and family
Under Fugo’s tutelage, Sammy’s has received numerous awards since its founding in 1980, including induction into Nation’s Restaurant News’ Fine Dining Hall of Fame, Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence and the prestigious Distinguished Restaurants of North America Award. In addition to company accolades, Fugo has received the Award for Business Excellence from Crain’s Cleveland Business and been named one of the publication’s “Women of Influence.”
Fugo is a former member of the National Restaurant Association Board of Directors, the leading business association of the restaurant industry. In 2000, she was elected to serve as the association’s chairman, the first woman to hold the post in more than 40 years. She has also served on the boards of the Gateway Economic Development Corporation, the Greater Cleveland Growth Association, the Council of Smaller Enterprises, the Greater Cleveland Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Historic Warehouse District. Currently, Fugo sits on the board of Charter One Bank and serves on its investment, compensation and community reinvestment act committees.
Fugo received her bachelor’s degree in communications and organizational behavior from Ohio University and her MBA with concentrations in accounting and finance from the University of Chicago.
Malcolm M. Knapp
Founder and President, Malcolm M. Knapp, Inc.
Through the New York-based consulting firm he started in 1972, Malcolm Knapp provides strategic planning, quantification of industry trends, forecasting and marketing research/analysis to clients in the foodservice industry. He is the creator of KNAPP-TRACK(tm), a monthly sales and guest count tracking report distributed to 39 television markets in the United States; and KNAPPTRACK FLASH (tm), a weekly report conducted for the United States, California and 8 television markets.
Malcom Knapp on the "emotional snowstorm"
For the past 33 years, Knapp has provided industry forecasts to the National Restaurant Association and also advised the U.S. Census Bureau on segment categorizations. He wrote the new foodservice industry definitions of the North American Industry Classification System for the U.S. Department of Commerce, definitions which replaced the Standard Industrial Classification System in 1997. For the past 18 years, his data has been published in the Statistical Abstract of the United States.
Knapp is quoted regularly on hospitality issues in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Time, Fortune and a variety of newspapers and trade publications. He also writes a month column on current trends in the casual dining market for Nation’s Restaurant News, one of the leading publications of the restaurant industry.
Knapp earned a bachelor’s degree in science from Columbia University and a master’s degree from Harvard Business School, where he specialized in organizational behavior and marketing. He currently sits on the board of Frisch’s Restaurants, Inc., is chairman of the food and beverage committee of the Harvard Club of New York City, a member of its house committee and a past member of its Board of Managers. He also is a past board member of the Corporation of the Culinary Institute of America - including a stint as vice chair - and served on its long-range planning and nominating committees.
About
The Moderator: Michael DeLuca
Managing Director of Public Affairs, Burson-Marsteller, Inc.
In his current position, Mike DeLuca provides public affairs counsel to Burson-Marsteller’s clients in the hospitality industry and is responsible for strengthening the company’s ability to communicate with the entire industry sector.
Prior to joining Burson-Marsteller, DeLuca was director of corporate development for Lebhar-Friedman, Inc., the leading independent publisher and provider of information serving the retail and foodservice communities. He also served as director of alternative media at Lebhar- Friedman’s Nation’s Restaurant News, where he identified and developed new media channels for the foodservice industry’s leading publication.
Mike DeLuca on obesity and the industry
Before that, DeLuca served in various leadership positions with iFoodie, Retail DNA, the Penton Foodservice Network and Restaurant Hospitality and Hotel & Motel Management magazines. Under DeLuca’s tutelage, several of the publications for whom he worked won prestigious national awards, including Restaurant Hospitality receiving the Folio’s Editorial Excellence Award for five consecutive years. His columns and feature articles have earned him seven awards from the American Society of Business Press Editors and a “Presidential Citation for Distinguished Service” award from the Foodservice Consultants Society International. He was twice named Penton’s “Editor of the Year.”
DeLuca is a founder, director and immediate-past vice chair of the Multicultural Foodservice & Hospitality Alliance, a former director of the Women’s Foodservice Forum and a past president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council. He is a Conti Visiting Professor at Penn State, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism, a member of Kent State University’s Hospitality Advisory Board and an ambassador for the Culinary Institute of America.
Mike DeLuca's impressions of the event
DeLuca completed graduate-level work at Northwestern University and holds an honorary Ph.D. in hospitality communications from Baltimore International College.